How to use MVC 3 @Html.ActionLink inside c# code

Question

I want to call the @Html.ActionLink method inside a c# function to return a string with a link on it.

Something like this:

string a = "Email is locked, click " + @Html.ActionLink("here to unlock.", "unlock") ;

Answer 1

Assuming that you want to accomplish this in your controller, there are several hoops to jump through. You must instantiate a ViewDataDictionary and a TempDataDictionary. Then you need to take the ControllerContext and create an IView. Finally, you are ready to create your HtmlHelper using all of these elements (plus your RouteCollection).

Once you have done all of this, you can use LinkExtensions.ActionLink to create your custom link. In your view, you will need to use @Html.Raw() to display your links, to prevent them from being HTML encoded. Here is the necessary code:

var vdd = new ViewDataDictionary();
var tdd = new TempDataDictionary();
var controllerContext = this.ControllerContext;
var view = new RazorView(controllerContext, "/", "/", false, null);
var html = new HtmlHelper(new ViewContext(controllerContext, view, vdd, tdd, new StringWriter()),
     new ViewDataContainer(vdd), RouteTable.Routes);
var a = "Email is locked, click " + LinkExtensions.ActionLink(html, "here to unlock.", "unlock", "controller").ToString();

Having shown all of this, I will caution you that it is a much better idea to do this in your view. Add the error and other information to your ViewModel, then code your view to create the link. If this is needed across multiple views, create an HtmlHelper to do the link creation.

UPDATE

To address one.beat.consumer, my initial answer was an example of what is possible. If the developer needs to reuse this technique, the complexity can be hidden in a static helper, like so:

public static class ControllerHtml
{
    // this class from internal TemplateHelpers class in System.Web.Mvc namespace
    private class ViewDataContainer : IViewDataContainer
    {
        public ViewDataContainer(ViewDataDictionary viewData)
        {
            ViewData = viewData;
        }

        public ViewDataDictionary ViewData { get; set; }
    }

    private static HtmlHelper htmlHelper;

    public static HtmlHelper Html(Controller controller)
    {
        if (htmlHelper == null)
        {
            var vdd = new ViewDataDictionary();
            var tdd = new TempDataDictionary();
            var controllerContext = controller.ControllerContext;
            var view = new RazorView(controllerContext, "/", "/", false, null);
            htmlHelper = new HtmlHelper(new ViewContext(controllerContext, view, vdd, tdd, new StringWriter()),
                 new ViewDataContainer(vdd), RouteTable.Routes);
        }
        return htmlHelper;
    }

    public static HtmlHelper Html(Controller controller, object model)
    {
        if (htmlHelper == null || htmlHelper.ViewData.Model == null || !htmlHelper.ViewData.Model.Equals(model))
        {
            var vdd = new ViewDataDictionary();
            vdd.Model = model;
            var tdd = new TempDataDictionary();
            var controllerContext = controller.ControllerContext;
            var view = new RazorView(controllerContext, "/", "/", false, null);
            htmlHelper = new HtmlHelper(new ViewContext(controllerContext, view, vdd, tdd, new StringWriter()),
                 new ViewDataContainer(vdd), RouteTable.Routes);
        }
        return htmlHelper;
    }
}

Then, in a controller, it is used like so:

var a = "Email is locked, click " + 
    ControllerHtml.Html(this).ActionLink("here to unlock.", "unlock", "controller").ToString();

or like so:

var model = new MyModel();
var text = ControllerHtml.Html(this, model).EditorForModel();

While it is easier to use Url.Action, this now extends into a powerful tool to generate any mark-up within a controller using all of the HtmlHelpers (with full Intellisense).

Possibilities of use include generating mark-up using models and Editor templates for emails, pdf generation, on-line document delivery, etc.