If we have two model classes like Customer details and Employee detail. ASP.NET MVC allows you to pass only One model to a view. The view can be bound with one and only one model. From the above statement, we understood that either pass customer or employee details to the view. Then What if a view requires to display both models?. Let us we discuss the situation as follows:

How to overcome?

In MVC we cannot pass more than one models from a controller to the single view. To overcome this we can use ExpandoObject class.

What is ExpandoObject ?

The .NET 4.0 framework actually includes an ExpandoObject class which provides a dynamic object that allows us to add properties and methods on the fly.

• ExpandoObject is a sealed type so we can’t use it as a base class
• It doesn’t serialize to XML or DataContractSerializer/DataContractJsonSerializer

From msdn, Represents an object whose members can be dynamically added and removed at run time.

When to use ?

In some time we need to display more than one type of model data in to the single view. For example i am having two models namely CustomerDetails and EmployeeDetails and if i need to display both information in single view then we can use the ExpandoObject.

Example :

Model :

Creating simple model namelu CustomerDetail.cs and EmployeeDetail.cs as shown below.

CustomerDetail.cs

public class CustomerDetail
{
public int CustomerId { get; set; }
public string CustomerName { get; set; }
public string CustomerAdress { get; set; }
}

EmployeeDetail.cs

public class EmployeeDetail
{
public int EmployeeId { get; set; }
public string EmployeeName { get; set; }
public string EmployeeAdress { get; set; }
}

Controller :

public ActionResult Index()
{
dynamic detailModel = new ExpandoObject();
detailModel.EmployeeDetail = GetEmployeeDetail();
detailModel.CustomerDetail = GetcutomerDetail();
return View(detailModel);
}

private List<EmployeeDetail> GetEmployeeDetail()
{
List<EmployeeDetail> employeeDetail = new List<EmployeeDetail>();
employeeDetail.Add(new EmployeeDetail { EmployeeId = 1001, EmployeeName = "Aadharsh", EmployeeAdress = "xxxxxx" });
employeeDetail.Add(new EmployeeDetail { EmployeeId = 1002, EmployeeName = "GK", EmployeeAdress = "xxxxxx" });
return employeeDetail;
}

public List<CustomerDetail> GetcutomerDetail()
{
List<CustomerDetail> cutomerDetail = new List<CustomerDetail>();
cutomerDetail.Add(new CustomerDetail { CustomerId = 256, CustomerName = "Kavitha", CustomerAdress = "xxxxxx" });
cutomerDetail.Add(new CustomerDetail { CustomerId = 257, CustomerName = "Gnanam", CustomerAdress = "xxxxxx" });
return cutomerDetail;
}

View :

@using Multiple_Models_in_Single_View.Models;
@model dynamic
@{
ViewBag.Title = "Detail Page";
}
<div>============================</div>

<table>
<tr>
<th>Emp Id</th>
<th>Emp Name</th>
<th>Emp Adress</th>
</tr>
@foreach (EmployeeDetail employeeDetail in Model.EmployeeDetail)
{
<tr>
<td>@employeeDetail.EmployeeId</td>
<td>@employeeDetail.EmployeeName</td>
<td>@employeeDetail.EmployeeAdress</td>
</tr>
}
</table>
<div>============================</div>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Cus Id</th>
<th>Cus Name</th>
<th>Cus Adress</th>
</tr>
@foreach (CustomerDetail cutomerDetail in Model.CustomerDetail)
{
<tr>
<td>@cutomerDetail.CustomerId</td>
<td>@cutomerDetail.CustomerName</td>
<td>@cutomerDetail.CustomerAdress</td>
</tr>
}
</table>

OUTPUT