What is ViewModel in MVC

Question

I am new to ASP NET MVC  I have a problem with understanding the purpose of a ViewModel    What is a ViewModel and why do we need a ViewModel for an ASP NET MVC Application    If I get a good example about its working and explanation that would be better

User · Answer

A lot of big examples  let me explain in clear and crispy way   ViewModel   Model that is created to serve the view   ASP NET MVC view can t have more than one model so if we need to display properties from more than one models into the view  it is not possible  ViewModel serves this purpose   View Model is a model class that can hold only those properties that is required for a view  It can also contains properties from more than one entities  tables  of the database  As the name suggests  this model is created specific to the View requirements    Few examples of View Models are below    To list data from more than entities in a view page     we can create a View model and have properties of all the entities for which we want to list data  Join those database entities and set View model properties and return to the View to show data of different entities in one tabular form View model may define only specific fields of a single entity that is required for the View    ViewModel can also be used to insert  update records into more than one entities however the main use of ViewModel is to display columns from multiple entities  model  into a single view   The way of creating ViewModel is same as creating Model  the way of creating view for the Viewmodel is same as creating view for Model   Here is a small example of List data using ViewModel   Hope this will be useful

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A view model is a conceptual model of data  Its use is to for example either get a subset or combine data from different tables    You might only want specific properties  so this allows you to only load those and not additional unneccesary properties

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If you have properties specific to the view  and not related to the DB Service Data store  it is a good practice to use ViewModels  Say  you want to leave a checkbox selected based on a DB field  or two  but the DB field itself isn t a boolean  While it is possible to create these properties in the Model itself and keep it hidden from the binding to data  you may not want to clutter the Model depending on the amount of such fields and transactions   If there are too few view-specific data and or transformations  you can use the Model itself

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If you want to study code how to setup a  Baseline  web application with ViewModels I can advise to download this code on GitHub  https   github com ajsaulsberry BlipAjax  I developed large enterprise applications  When you do this its problematic to setup a good architecture that handles all this  ViewModel  functionality  I think with BlipAjax you will have a very Good  baseline  to start with  Its just a simple website  but great in its simplicity  I like the way they used the English language to point at whats really needed in the application

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ViewModel is workaround that patches the conceptual clumsiness of the MVC framework  It represents the 4th layer in the 3-layer Model-View-Controller architecture  when Model  domain model  is not appropriate  too big  bigger than 2-3 fields  for the View  we create smaller ViewModel to pass it to the View

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MVC doesn t have a viewmodel  it has a model  view and controller  A viewmodel is part of MVVM  Model-View-Viewmodel   MVVM is derived from the Presentation Model and is popularized in WPF  There should also be a model in MVVM  but most people miss the point of that pattern completely and they will only have a view and a viewmodel  The model in MVC is similar to the model in MVVM   In MVC the process is split into 3 different responsibilities    View is responsible for presenting the data to the user A controller is responsible for the page flow A model is responsible for the business logic   MVC is not very suitable for web applications  It is a pattern introduced by Smalltalk for creating desktop applications  A web environment behaves completely different  It doesn t make much sense to copy a 40-year old concept from the desktop development and paste it into a web enviroment  However a lot of people think this is ok  because their application compiles and returns the correct values  That is  in my opinion  not enough to declare a certain design choice as ok   An example of a model in a web application could be   public class LoginModel       private readonly AuthenticationService authentication       public LoginModel AuthenticationService authentication                this authentication   authentication             public bool Login                 return authentication Login Username  Password              public string Username   get  set        public string Password   get  set        The controller can use it like this   public class LoginController        HttpPost      public ActionResult Login LoginModel model                bool success   model Login             if  success                        return new RedirectResult   dashboard                      else                       TempData  message      Invalid username and or password               return new RedirectResult   login                        Your controller methods and your models will be small  easily testable and to the point

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ViewModel is the model containing fields to use in mvc View  Using ViewModel for the view has following benefits   As database model  Entity class  contains single table s data  If required data from multiple tables  single Viewmodel can have multiple tables  fields  User can not interact directly with database model  so Database layer or model is secured  It is used to get data from database model through repository and pass to view  Similarly  it utilizes for posting data to database model to update database records

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Edit  I updated this answer on my Blog  http   www samwheat com post The-function-of-ViewModels-in-MVC-web-development My answer is a bit lengthy but I think it is important to compare view models to other types of commonly used models to understand why they are different and why they are necessary  To summarize  and to directly answer the question that is asked  Generally speaking  a view model is an object that contains all the properties and methods necessary to render a view  View model properties are often related to data objects such as customers and orders and in addition  they also contain properties related to the page or application itself such as user name  application name  etc  View models provide a convenient object to pass to a rendering engine to create an HTML page   One of many reasons to use a view model is that view models provide a way to unit test certain presentation tasks such as handling user input  validating data  retrieving data for display  etc  Here is a comparison of Entity models  a ka  DTOs a ka  models   Presentation Models  and View Models  Data Transfer Objects a k a    Model    A Data Transfer Object  DTO  is a class with properties that match a table schema in a database   DTOs are named for their common usage for shuttling data to and from a data store  Characteristics of DTOs   Are business objects     their definition is dependent on application data  Usually contain properties only     no code  Primarily used for transporting data to and from a database  Properties exactly or closely match fields on a specific table in a data store   Database tables are usually normalized therefore DTOs are usually normalized also   This makes them of limited use for presenting data   However  for certain simple data structures  they often do quite well  Here are two examples of what DTOs might look like  public class Customer       public int ID   get  set        public string CustomerName   get  set        public class Order       public int ID   get  set        public int CustomerID   get  set        public DateTime OrderDate   get  set        public Decimal OrderAmount   get  set         Presentation Models A presentation model is a utility class that is used to render data on a screen or report   Presentation models are typically used to model complex data structures that are composed of data from multiple DTOs   Presentation models often represent a denormalized view of data  Characteristics of Presentation Models   Are business objects     their definition is dependent on application data  Contain mostly properties  Code is typically limited to formatting data or converting it to or from a DTO   Presentation Models should not contain business logic  Often present a denormalized view of data   That is  they often combine properties from multiple DTOs  Often contain properties of a different base type than a DTO   For example  dollar amounts may be represented as strings so they can contain commas and a currency symbol  Often defined by how they are used as well as their object characteristics   In other words  a simple DTO that is used as the backing model for rendering a grid is in fact also a presentation model in the context of that grid   Presentation models are used    as needed    and    where needed     whereas DTOs are usually tied to the database schema    A presentation model may be used to model data for an entire page  a grid on a page  or a dropdown on a grid on a page  Presentation models often contain properties that are other presentation models   Presentation models are often constructed for a single-use purpose such as to render a specific grid on a single page  An example presentation model  public class PresentationOrder       public int OrderID   get  set        public DateTime OrderDate   get  set        public string PrettyDate   get   return OrderDate ToShortDateString            public string CustomerName   get  set        public Decimal OrderAmount   get  set        public string PrettyAmount   get   return string Format  quot  0 C  quot   OrderAmount          View Models A view model is similar to a presentation model in that is a backing class for rendering a view   However  it is very different from a Presentation Model or a DTO in how it is constructed   View models often contain the same properties as presentation models and DTOs and for this reason  they are often confused one for the other  Characteristics of View Models   Are the single source of data used to render a page or screen   Usually  this means that a view model will expose every property that any control on the page will need to render itself correctly   Making the view model the single source of data for the view greatly improves its capability and value for unit testing  Are composite objects that contain properties that consist of application data as well as properties that are used by application code   This characteristic is crucial when designing the view model for reusability and is discussed in the examples below  Contain application code   View Models usually contain methods that are called during rendering and when the user is interacting with the page   This code typically relates to event handling  animation  visibility of controls  styling  etc  Contain code that calls business services for the purpose of retrieving data or sending it to a database server   This code is often mistakenly placed in a controller  Calling business services from a controller usually limits the usefulness of the view model for unit testing   To be clear  view models themselves should not contain business logic but should make calls to services which do contain business logic  Often contain properties that are other view models for other pages or screens  Are written    per page    or    per screen      A unique View Model is typically written for every page or screen in an application  Usually derive from a base class since most pages and screens share common properties   View Model Composition As stated earlier  view models are composite objects in that they combine application properties and business data properties on a single object   Examples of commonly used application properties that are used on view models are   Properties that are used to display application state such as error messages  user name  status  etc  Properties used to format  display  stylize  or animate controls  Properties used for data binding such as list objects and properties that hold intermediate data that is input by the user   The following examples show why the composite nature of view models is important and how we can best construct a View Model that efficient and reusable  Assume we are writing a web application   One of the requirements of the application design is that the page title  user name  and application name must be displayed on every page   If we want to create a page to display a presentation order object  we may modify the presentation model as follows  public class PresentationOrder       public string PageTitle   get  set        public string UserName   get  set        public string ApplicationName   get  set        public int OrderID   get  set        public DateTime OrderDate   get  set        public string PrettyDate   get   return OrderDate ToShortDateString            public string CustomerName   get  set        public Decimal OrderAmount   get  set        public string PrettyAmount   get   return string Format  quot  0 C  quot   OrderAmount          This design might work    but what if we want to create a page that will display a list of orders   The PageTitle  UserName  and ApplicationName properties will be repeated and become unwieldy to work with   Also  what if we want to define some page-level logic in the constructor of the class   We can no longer do that if we create an instance for every order that will be displayed  Composition over inheritance Here is a way we might re-factor the order presentation model such that it becomes a true view model and will be useful for displaying a single PresentationOrder object or a collection of PresentationOrder objects  public class PresentationOrderVM          Application properties     public string PageTitle   get  set        public string UserName   get  set        public string ApplicationName   get  set            Business properties     public PresentationOrder Order   get  set        public class PresentationOrderVM          Application properties     public string PageTitle   get  set        public string UserName   get  set        public string ApplicationName   get  set            Business properties     public List lt PresentationOrder gt  Orders   get  set       Looking at the above two classes we can see that one way to think about a view model is that it is a presentation model that contains another presentation model as a property   The top-level presentation model  i e  view model  contains properties that are relevant to the page or application while the presentation model  property  contains properties that are relevant to application data  We can take our design a step further and create a base view model class that can be used not only for PresentationOrders but for any other class as well  public class BaseViewModel          Application properties     public string PageTitle   get  set        public string UserName   get  set        public string ApplicationName   get  set       Now we can simplify our PresentationOrderVM like this  public class PresentationOrderVM   BaseViewModel          Business properties     public PresentationOrder Order   get  set       public class PresentationOrderVM   BaseViewModel          Business properties     public List lt PresentationOrder gt  Orders   get  set       We can make our BaseViewModel even more re-usable by making it generic  public class BaseViewModel lt T gt           Application properties     public string PageTitle   get  set        public string UserName   get  set        public string ApplicationName   get  set            Business property     public T BusinessObject   get  set       Now our implementations are effortless  public class PresentationOrderVM   BaseViewModel lt PresentationOrder gt           done     public class PresentationOrderVM   BaseViewModel lt List lt PresentationOrder gt  gt           done

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View model is a class that represents the data model used in a specific view  We could use this class as a model for a login page   public class LoginPageVM        Required ErrorMessage    Are you really trying to login without entering username          DisplayName  Username e-mail        public string UserName   get  set         Required ErrorMessage    Please enter password           DisplayName  Password        public string Password   get  set         DisplayName  Stay logged in when browser is closed        public bool RememberMe   get  set        Using this view model you can define the view  Razor view engine     model CamelTrap Models ViewModels LoginPageVM   using  Html BeginForm           Html EditorFor m   gt  m        lt input type  submit  value  Save  class  submit    gt      And actions    HttpGet  public ActionResult LoginPage         return View        HttpPost  public ActionResult LoginPage LoginPageVM model           code to login user to application        return View model       Which produces this result  screen is taken after submitting form  with validation messages      As you can see  a view model has many roles    View models documents a view by consisting only fields  that are represented in view  View models may contain specific validation rules using data annotations or IDataErrorInfo  View model defines how a view should look  for LabelFor EditorFor DisplayFor helpers   View models can combine values from different database entities  You can specify easily display templates for view models and reuse them in many places using DisplayFor or EditorFor helpers    Another example of a view model and its retrieval  We want to display basic user data  his privileges and users name  We create a special view model  which contains only the required fields  We retrieve data from different entities from database  but the view is only aware of the view model class   public class UserVM       public int ID   get  set        public string FirstName   get  set        public string LastName   get  set        public bool IsAdministrator   get  set        public string MothersName   get  set        Retrieval   var user   db userRepository GetUser id    var model   new UserVM        ID   user ID     FirstName   user FirstName     LastName   user LastName     IsAdministrator   user Proviledges IsAdministrator     MothersName   user Mother FirstName         user Mother LastName

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I didn t read all the posts but every answer seems to be missing one concept that really helped me  get it       If a Model is akin to a database Table  then a ViewModel is akin to a database View - A view typically either returns small amounts of data from one table  or  complex sets of data from multiple tables  joins    I find myself using ViewModels to pass info into a view form  and then transfering that data into a valid Model when the form posts back to the controller - also very handy for storing Lists IEnumerable

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View Model is class which we can use for rendering data on View  Suppose you have two entities Place and PlaceCategory and you want to access data from both entities using a single model then we use ViewModel     public class Place              public int PlaceId   get  set            public string PlaceName   get  set            public string Latitude   get  set            public string Longitude   get  set            public string BestTime   get  set              public class Category               public int ID   get  set            public int  PlaceId   get  set            public string PlaceCategoryName   get  set            public string PlaceCategoryType   get  set              public class PlaceCategoryviewModel               public string PlaceName   get  set            public string BestTime   get  set            public string PlaceCategoryName   get  set            public string PlaceCategoryType   get  set            So in above Example Place and Category are the two different entities and PlaceCategory viewmodel is ViewModel which we can use on View

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View model is same as your datamodel but you can add 2 or more data model classes in it  According to that you have to change your controller to take 2 models at once

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A view model represents the data that you want to display on your view page  whether it be used for static text or for input values  like textboxes and dropdown lists  that can be added to the database  or edited   It is something different than your domain model  It is a model for the view   Let us say that you have an Employee class that represents your employee domain model and it contains the following properties  unique identifier  first name  last name and date created    public class Employee   IEntity        public int Id   get  set          public string FirstName   get  set          public string LastName   get  set          public DateTime DateCreated   get  set        View models differ from domain models in that view models only contain the data  represented by properties  that you want to use on your view   For example  lets say that you want to add a new employee record  your view model might look like this   public class CreateEmployeeViewModel        public string FirstName   get  set          public string LastName   get  set        As you can see it only contains two of the properties  These two properties are also in the employee domain model   Why is this you may ask   Id might not be set from the view  it might be auto generated by the Employee table   And DateCreated might also be set in the stored procedure or in the service layer of your application   So Id and DateCreated are not needed in the view model  You might want to display these two properties when you view an employee   s details  an employee that has already been captured  as static text   When loading the view page  the create action method in your employee controller will create an instance of this view model  populate any fields if required  and then pass this view model to the view page   public class EmployeeController   Controller        private readonly IEmployeeService employeeService        public EmployeeController IEmployeeService employeeService                   this employeeService   employeeService               public ActionResult Create                    CreateEmployeeViewModel model   new CreateEmployeeViewModel               return View model                public ActionResult Create CreateEmployeeViewModel model                      Do what ever needs to be done before adding the employee to the database            Your view page might look like this  assuming you are using ASP NET MVC and the Razor view engine     model MyProject Web ViewModels CreateEmployeeViewModel   lt table gt        lt tr gt             lt td gt  lt b gt First Name  lt  b gt  lt  td gt             lt td gt  Html TextBoxFor m   gt  m FirstName  new   maxlength    50   size    50                    Html ValidationMessageFor m   gt  m FirstName             lt  td gt        lt  tr gt        lt tr gt             lt td gt  lt b gt Last Name  lt  b gt  lt  td gt             lt td gt  Html TextBoxFor m   gt  m LastName  new   maxlength    50   size    50                    Html ValidationMessageFor m   gt  m LastName             lt  td gt        lt  tr gt   lt  table gt    Validation would thus be done only on FirstName and LastName   Using FluentValidation you might have validation like this   public class CreateEmployeeViewModelValidator   AbstractValidator lt CreateEmployeeViewModel gt         public CreateEmployeeViewModelValidator                    RuleFor m   gt  m FirstName                  NotEmpty                   WithMessage  First name required                   Length 1  50                  WithMessage  First name must not be greater than 50 characters               RuleFor m   gt  m LastName                  NotEmpty                   WithMessage  Last name required                   Length 1  50                  WithMessage  Last name must not be greater than 50 characters               And with Data Annotations it might look this   public class CreateEmployeeViewModel   ViewModelBase        Display Name    First Name         Required ErrorMessage    First name required        public string FirstName   get  set          Display Name    Last Name         Required ErrorMessage    Last name required        public string LastName   get  set        The key thing to remember is that the view model only represents the data that you want to use  nothing else   You can imagine all the unnecessary code and validation if you have a domain model with 30 properties and you only want to update a single value   Given this scenario you would only have this one value property in the view model and not all the properties that are in the domain object   A view model might not only have data from one database table  It can combine data from another table  Take my example above about adding a new employee record  Besides adding just the first and last names you might also want to add the department of the employee  This list of departments will come from your Departments table  So now you have data from the Employees and Departments tables in one view model  You will just then need to add the following two properties to your view model and populate it with data   public int DepartmentId   get  set     public IEnumerable lt Department gt  Departments   get  set      When editing employee data  an employee that has already been added to the database  it wouldn   t differ much from my example above   Create a view model  call it for example EditEmployeeViewModel  Only have the data that you want to edit in this view model  like first name and last name  Edit the data and click the submit button  I wouldn   t worry too much about the Id field because the Id value will probably been in the URL  for example    http   www yourwebsite com Employee Edit 3   Take this Id and pass it through to your repository layer  together with your first name and last name values   When deleting a record  I normally follow the same path as with the edit view model  I would also have a URL  for example   http   www yourwebsite com Employee Delete 3   When the view loads up for the first time I would get the employee   s data from the database using the Id of 3  I would then just display static text on my view page so that the user can see what employee is being deleted  When the user clicks the Delete button  I would just use the Id value of 3 and pass it to my repository layer  You only need the Id to delete a record from the table   Another point  you don   t really need a view model for every action  If it is simple data then it would be fine to only use EmployeeViewModel  If it is complex views pages and they differ from each other then I would suggest you use separate view models for each   I hope this clears up any confusion that you had about view models and domain models

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ViewModel contain fields that are represented in the view  for LabelFor EditorFor DisplayFor helpers  ViewModel can have specific validation rules using data annotations or IDataErrorInfo  ViewModel can have multiple entities or objects from different data models or data source    Designing ViewModel  public class UserLoginViewModel      Required ErrorMessage    Please enter your username      Display Name    User Name     MaxLength 50   public string UserName   get  set      Required ErrorMessage    Please enter your password      Display Name    Password      MaxLength 50    public string Password   get  set          Presenting the viewmodel in the view   model MyModels UserLoginViewModel      ViewBag Title    User Login    Layout      Views Shared  Layout cshtml      using  Html BeginForm       lt div class  editor-label  gt    Html LabelFor m   gt  m UserName   lt  div gt   lt div class  editor-field  gt    Html TextBoxFor m   gt  m UserName    Html ValidationMessageFor m   gt  m UserName   lt  div gt   lt div class  editor-label  gt    Html LabelFor m   gt  m Password   lt  div gt   lt div class  editor-field  gt    Html PasswordFor m   gt  m Password    Html ValidationMessageFor m   gt  m Password   lt  div gt   lt p gt    lt input type  submit  value  Log In    gt   lt  p gt   lt  div gt      Working with Action  public ActionResult Login      return View       HttpPost  public ActionResult Login UserLoginViewModel user       To acces data using LINQ DataClassesDataContext mobjentity   new DataClassesDataContext     if  ModelState IsValid      try     var q   mobjentity tblUsers Where m   gt  m UserName    user UserName  amp  amp  m Password    user Password  ToList      if  q Count  gt  0        return RedirectToAction  MyAccount        else     ModelState AddModelError      The user name or password provided is incorrect            catch  Exception ex              return View user         In ViewModel put only those fields data that you want to display on  the view page  Since view reperesents the properties of the ViewModel  hence it is easy for rendering and maintenance  Use a mapper when ViewModel become more complex

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View model a is simple class which can contain more than one class property  We use it to inherit all the required properties  e g  I have two classes Student and Subject   Public class Student   public int Id  get  set   public string Name  get  set       Public class Subject   public int SubjectID  get  set   public string SubjectName  get  set       Now we want to display records student s Name and Subject s Name in View  In MVC   but it s not possible to add more than one classes like     model ProjectName Model Student     model ProjectName Model Subject   the code above will throw an error     Now we create one class and can give it any name  but this format  XyzViewModel  will make it easier to understand  It is inheritance concept  Now we create a third class with the following name   public class StudentViewModel Subject   public int ID  get  set   public string Name  get  set       Now  we use this ViewModel in View       model ProjectName Model StudentViewModel   Now we are able to access all the properties of StudentViewModel and inherited class in View

[asp.net-mvc] What is ViewModel in MVC?

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