MVC-使用AutoMapper发送集合视图模型

Question

I have a fairly simple example of a mapping that is working, but I'm not convinced that I'm doing the correct thing. Could somebody help me understand what the best practise is with sending collections through to the View Model?

This is the AutoMapper.CreateMap:

Mapper.CreateMap<Product, _BrowseViewModel>();

This is the Controller:

var dsProduct = from p in Entity.Product
select p;

if (dsProduct.Any())
{
   IEnumerable<_BrowseViewModel> browseViewModel = Mapper.Map<IEnumerable<Product>, IEnumerable<_BrowseViewModel>>(dsProduct.ToList());
   return View(browseViewModel);
}

The _BrowseViewModel class only contains a few fields from the Product table that will be displayed:

public class _BrowseViewModel
{

    public long ProductID { get; set; }
    public string ProductName { get; set; }
    ... etc

My concern is that the Model in the view is now a collection; which does not seem right.

@model IEnumerable<AppStoreModel._BrowseViewModel>

What is the correct architecture for this particular scenario?

Answer 1

The best way to do what you're trying to achieve do is by using AutoMapper's projection feature, like so:

IEnumerable<BrowseProduct> browseViewModel = dsProduct.Project().To<BrowseProduct>().ToList();

using the following AutoMapper configuration:

Mapper.Map<Product, BrowseProduct>();

If you're sending data to the view and are concerned about sending the data as a list, then I would recommend sending a view model to the view that contains your list of products, eg:

public class BrowseProductsViewModel
{
    public string ProductCategory { get; set;}

    public IEnumerable<BrowseProduct> Products { get; set; }
}

This introduction of the view model will allow you to pass new data to your view without the need to update the view model type within your razor views.

Answer 2

It seems that having Product as a child class is working better (Thanks MajoB).

Here is the code for anyone battling with mapping collections.

ViewModel:

public class _BrowseViewModel
{
    public IEnumerable<_BrowseProduct> BrowseProduct { get; set; }
}

public class _BrowseProduct
{
    public long ProductID { get; set; }
    public string ProductName { get; set; }
    ... etc
}

AutoMapper Config:

Mapper.CreateMap<Product, _BrowseProduct>();

Controller:

 _BrowseViewModel browseViewModel = new _BrowseViewModel();
 browseViewModel.BrowseProduct = Mapper.Map<IEnumerable<Product>, IEnumerable<_BrowseProduct>>(dsProduct);

return View(browseViewModel);

I think this is quite a good way of achieving what I set out to do.