Programming Tutorials

Passing a model globally to all Views in your Asp.net webapp

By: Terrence in Asp.net Tutorials on 2023-06-01  

Let us say you have a model named customerSettings that you initialize when the user logs in and then you want to save it globally for later use throughout the application in all views. 

The customerSettings object is not kept globally by default. It is created and passed as a model to a specific view when you return that view from your controller action.

If you want to access the customerSettings object in other views without explicitly passing it as a model, you have a few options:

1. TempData: You can store the customerSettings object in the TempData dictionary within your controller action and retrieve it in another controller action or view. However, TempData is intended for short-lived data and is cleared after it is read once.

Example: In the controller action:

TempData["CustomerSettings"] = customerSettings;

In the other controller action or view:

var customerSettings = TempData["CustomerSettings"] as CustomerSettings;

2. Session: You can store the customerSettings object in the Session object, which allows you to persist data across multiple requests. However, be mindful of the session's storage impact and potential scalability issues.

Example: In the controller action:

HttpContext.Session.SetString("CustomerSettings", JsonConvert.SerializeObject(customerSettings));

In the other controller action or view:

var customerSettingsJson = HttpContext.Session.GetString("CustomerSettings");
var customerSettings = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<CustomerSettings>(customerSettingsJson);

3. Static variable: You can use a static variable in a class to store the customerSettings object, making it accessible across different views or controller actions. However, be cautious with static variables as they are shared across all requests and may lead to issues related to concurrency and data consistency.

Example: In a separate class:

public static class GlobalSettings
{
    public static CustomerSettings CustomerSettings { get; set; }
}

In the controller action:

GlobalSettings.CustomerSettings = customerSettings;

In the other controller action or view:

var customerSettings = GlobalSettings.CustomerSettings;

Remember that the appropriate choice depends on the specific requirements and constraints of your application, although I prefer the third option of using static method