MVCinterview QuestionsandAnswers

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What is MVC(Model view controller)? Can you explain the complete flow of MVC? Is MVC suitable for both windows and web application? What are the benefits of using MVC? Is MVC different from a 3 layered architecture? What is the latest version of MVC? What is the difference between each version of MVC? What are routing in MVC? Where is the route mapping code written? Can we map multiple URLs to the same action? How can we navigate from one view to other view using hyperlink? How can we restrict MVC actions to be invoked only by GET or POST? How can we maintain session in MVC? What is the difference between tempdata,viewdata and viewbag? What are partial views in MVC? How did you create partial view and consume the same? How can we do validations in MVC? Can we display all errors in one go? How can we enable data annotation validation on client side? What is razor in MVC? Why razor when we already had ASPX? So which is a better fit Razor or ASPX? How can you do authentication and authorization in MVC? How to implement windows authentication for MVC? How do you implement forms authentication in MVC? How to implement Ajax in MVC? What kind of events can be tracked in AJAX? What is the difference between ActionResult and ViewResult? What are the different types of results in MVC? What are ActionFiltersin MVC? Can we create our custom view engine using MVC? How to send result back in JSON format in MVC? What is WebAPI? But WCF SOAP also does the same thing, so how does WebAPI differ? With WCF also you can implement REST, So why "WebAPI"? How can we detect that a MVC controller is called by POST or GET?

What is MVC(Model view controller)?

MVC is architectural pattern which separates the representation and the user interaction. Its divided in three broader sections, Model, View and Controller. Below is how each one of them handles the task.

The View is responsible for look and feel. Model represents the real world object and provides data to the View. The Controller is responsible to take the end user request and load the appropriate Model and View.

Figure: - MVC (Model view controller)

Can you explain the complete flow of MVC?

Below are the steps how control flows in MVC (Model, view and controller) architecture:-

All end user requests are first sent to the controller. The controller depending on the request decides which model to load. The controller loads the model and attaches the model with the appropriate view. The final view is then attached with the model data and sent as a response to the end user on the browser.

Is MVC suitable for both windows and web application?

MVC architecture is suited for web application than windows. For window application MVP i.e. Model view presenter is more applicable.IfyouareusingWPFandSLMVVMismoresuitableduetobindings.

What are the benefits of using MVC?

There are two big benefits of MVC:Separation of concerns is achieved as we are moving the code behind to a separate class file. By moving the binding code to a separate class file we can reuse the code to a great extent. Automated UI testing is possible because now the behind code (UI interaction code) has moved to a simple.NET class. This gives us opportunity to write unit tests and automate manual testing.

Is MVC different from a 3 layered architecture?

MVC is an evolution of a 3 layered traditional architecture. Many components of 3 layered architecture are part of MVC. So below is how the mapping goes. Functionality Look and Feel UI logic Business logic /validations Request is first sent to Accessing data 3 layered / tiered architecture User interface. User interface. Middle layer User interface Data access layer. Model view controller architecture View. Controller Model. Controller. Data access layer.

Figure: - 3 layered architecture

What is the latest version of MVC?

When this note was written, four versions where released of MVC. MVC 1 , MVC 2, MVC 3 and MVC 4. So the latest is MVC 4.

What is the difference between each version of MVC?

Below is a detail table of differences. But during interview its difficult to talk about all of them due to time limitation. So I have highlighted important differences which you can run through before the interviewer. MVC 2 Client-Side Validation Templated Helpers Areas Asynchronous ControllersHtml.ValidationSummary Helper Method DefaultValueAttribute in Action-Method Parameters Binding Binary Data with Model Binders DataAnnotations Attributes Model-Validator Providers New RequireHttpsAttribute Action Filter Templated Helpers Display Model-Level Errors MVC 3 Razor Readymade project templates MVC 4 ASP.NET Web API Refreshed and modernized default project templatesNew mobile project template

HTML 5 enabled templatesSupport for Multiple View EnginesJavaScript Many new features to support mobile and Ajax apps Model Validation Improvements Enhanced support for asynchronous methods

What are routing in MVC?

Routing helps you to define a URL structure and map the URL with the controller. For instance lets say we want that when any user types http://localhost/View/ViewCustomer/, it goes to the Customer Controller and invokes DisplayCustomer action. This is defined by adding an entry in to the routes collection using the maproute function. Below is the under lined code which shows how the URL structure and mapping with controller and action is defined.
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routes.MapRoute( "View",//Routename "View/ViewCustomer/{id}",//URLwithparameters new{controller="Customer",action="DisplayCustomer", id=UrlParameter.Optional});//Parameterdefaults

Where is the route mapping code written?

The route mapping code is written in the global.asax file.

Can we map multiple URLs to the same action?

Yes , you can , you just need to make two entries with different key names and specify the same controller and action.

How can we navigate from one view to other view using hyperlink?
By using ActionLink method as shown in the below code. The below code will create a simple URL which help to navigate to the Home controller and invoke the GotoHome action.
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<%=Html.ActionLink("Home","Gotohome")%>

How can we restrict MVC actions to be invoked only by GET or POST?

We can decorate the MVC action by HttpGet or HttpPost attribute to restrict the type of HTTP calls. For instance you can see in the below code snippet the DisplayCustomer action can only be invoked by HttpGet. If we try to make Http post on DisplayCustomer it will throw an error.
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[HttpGet] publicViewResultDisplayCustomer(intid) { CustomerobjCustomer=Customers[id]; returnView("DisplayCustomer",objCustomer); }

How can we maintain session in MVC?

Sessions can be maintained in MVC by 3 ways tempdata ,viewdata and viewbag.

What is the difference between tempdata ,viewdata and viewbag?

Figure:- difference between tempdata , viewdata and viewbag Temp data: -Helps to maintain data when you move from one controller to other controller or from one action to other action. In other words when you redirect,tempdata helps to maintain data between those redirects. It internally uses session variables. View data: - Helps to maintain data when you move from controller to view. View Bag: - Its a dynamic wrapper around view data. When you use Viewbag type casting is not required. It uses the dynamic keyword internally.

Figure:-dynamic keyword Session variables: - By using session variables we can maintain data from any entity to any entity. Hidden fields and HTML controls: - Helps to maintain data from UI to controller only. So you can send data from HTML controls or hidden fields to the controller using POST or GET HTTP methods. Below is a summary table which shows different mechanism of persistence. Maintains data between Controller to Controller Controller to View View to Controller ViewData/ViewBag No Yes No TempData Yes No No Hidden fields No No Yes Session Yes Yes Yes

What are partial views in MVC?

Partial view is a reusable view (like a user control) which can be embedded inside other view. For example lets say all your pages of your site have a standard structure with left menu, header and footer as shown in the image below.

Figure:- partial views in MVC For every page you would like to reuse the left menu, header and footer controls. So you can go and create partial views for each of these items and then you call that partial view in the main view.

How did you create partial view and consume the same?
When you add a view to your project you need to check the Create partial view check box.

Figure:-createpartialview Once the partial view is created you can then call the partial view in the main view using Html.RenderPartial method as shown in the below code snippet. . <body> <div> <%Html.RenderPartial("MyView");%> </div> </body>

How can we do validations in MVC?

One of the easy ways of doing validation in MVC is by using data annotations. Data annotations are nothing but attributes which you can be applied on the model properties. For example in the below code snippet we have a simple customer class with a property customercode. ThisCustomerCode property is tagged with a Required data annotation attribute. In other words if this model is not provided customer code it will not accept the same.
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publicclassCustomer { [Required(ErrorMessage="Customercodeisrequired")] publicstringCustomerCode { set; get; } }

In order to display the validation error message we need to use ValidateMessageFor method which belongs to the Html helper class.
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<%using(Html.BeginForm("PostCustomer","Home",FormMethod.Post)) {%> <%=Html.TextBoxFor(m=>m.CustomerCode)%> <%=Html.ValidationMessageFor(m=>m.CustomerCode)%> <inputtype="submit"value="Submitcustomerdata"/> <%}%> Later in the controller we can check if the model is proper or not by using ModelState.IsValid property and accordingly we can take actions.
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publicActionResultPostCustomer(Customerobj) { if(ModelState.IsValid) { obj.Save(); returnView("Thanks"); } else { returnView("Customer"); } } Below is a simple view of how the error message is displayed on the view.

Figure:- validations in MVC

Can we display all errors in one go?

Yes we can, use ValidationSummary method from HTML helper class.

<%=Html.ValidationSummary()%> What are the other data annotation attributes for validation in MVC? If you want to check string length, you can use StringLength.
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[StringLength(160)] publicstringFirstName{get;set;} In case you want to use regular expression, you can use RegularExpression attribute.

[RegularExpression(@"[AZaz09._%+]+@[AZaz09.]+\.[AZaz]{2,4}")]publicstringEmail{ get;set;} If you want to check whether the numbers are in range, you can use the Range attribute.
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[Range(10,25)]publicintAge{get;set;} Some time you would like to compare value of one field with other field, we can use the Compare attribute.
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publicstringPassword{get;set;}[Compare("Password")]publicstringConfirmPass{get;set; } In case you want to get a particular error message , you can use the Errors collection.

varErrMessage=ModelState["Email"].Errors[0].ErrorMessage; If you have created the model object yourself you can explicitly call TryUpdateModel in your controller to check if the object is valid or not. TryUpdateModel(NewCustomer); In case you want add errors in the controller you can use AddModelError function. ModelState.AddModelError("FirstName","Thisismyserversideerror.");

How can we enable data annotation validation on client side?

Its a two-step process first reference the necessary jquery files. <scriptsrc="<%=Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery1.5.1.js")%>"type="text/javascript"></script> <scriptsrc="<%=Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.js")%>" type="text/javascript"></script> <scriptsrc="<%=Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.js")%>" type="text/javascript"></script> Second step is to call EnableClientValidation method. <%Html.EnableClientValidation();%>

What is razor in MVC?

Its a light weight view engine. Till MVC we had only one view type i.e.ASPX, Razor was introduced in MVC 3.

Why razor when we already had ASPX?

Razor is clean, lightweight and syntaxes are easy as compared to ASPX. For example in ASPX to display simple time we need to write. <%=DateTime.Now%>

In Razor its just one line of code. @DateTime.Now

So which is a better fit Razor or ASPX?

As per Microsoft razor is more preferred because its light weight and has simple syntaxes.

How can you do authentication and authorization in MVC?

You can use windows or forms authentication for MVC.

How to implement windows authentication for MVC?

For windows authentication you need to go and modify the web.config file and set authentication mode to windows. <authenticationmode="Windows"/> <authorization> <denyusers="?"/> </authorization> Then in the controller or on the action you can use the Authorize attribute which specifies which users have access to these controllers and actions. Below is the code snippet for the same. Now only the users specified in the controller and action can access the same. [Authorize(Users=@"WIN3LI600MWLQN\Administrator")] publicclassStartController:Controller { // //GET:/Start/ [Authorize(Users=@"WIN3LI600MWLQN\Administrator")] publicActionResultIndex() { returnView("MyView"); } }

How do you implement forms authentication in MVC?

Forms authentication is implemented the same way as we do in ASP.NET. So the first step is to set authentication mode equal to forms. The loginUrl points to a controller here rather than page. <authenticationmode="Forms"> <formsloginUrl="~/Home/Login"timeout="2880"/> </authentication> We also need to create a controller where we will check the user is proper or not. If the user is proper we will set the cookie value. publicActionResultLogin() { if((Request.Form["txtUserName"]=="Shiv")&&(Request.Form["txtPassword"]=="Shiv@123")) { FormsAuthentication.SetAuthCookie("Shiv",true); returnView("About"); }

else { returnView("Index"); } } All the other actions need to be attributed with Authorize attribute so that any unauthorized user if he makes a call to these controllers it will redirect to the controller ( in this case the controller is Login) which will do authentication. [Authorize] PublicActionResultDefault() { returnView(); } [Authorize] publicActionResultAbout() { returnView(); }

How to implement Ajax in MVC?

You can implement Ajax in two ways in MVC: -

Ajax libraries Jquery Below is a simple sample of how to implement Ajax by using Ajax helper library. In the below code you can see we have a simple form which is created by using Ajax.BeginForm syntax. This form calls a controller action called as getCustomer. So now the submit action click will be an asynchronous ajax call. <scriptlanguage="javascript"> functionOnSuccess(data1) { //Dosomethinghere } </script> <div> <% varAjaxOpt=newAjaxOptions{OnSuccess="OnSuccess"}; %> <%using(Ajax.BeginForm("getCustomer","MyAjax",AjaxOpt)){%> <inputid="txtCustomerCode"type="text"/><br/> <inputid="txtCustomerName"type="text"/><br/> <inputid="Submit2"type="submit"value="submit"/></div> <%}%> In case you want to make ajax calls on hyperlink clicks you can use Ajax.ActionLink function as shown in the below code.

Figure:- implement Ajax in MVC

So if you want to create Ajax asynchronous hyperlink by name GetDate which calls the GetDate function on the controller , below is the code for the same. Once the controller responds this data is displayed in the HTML DIV tag by name DateDiv.

<spanid="DateDiv"/> <%: Ajax.ActionLink("GetDate","GetDate", newAjaxOptions{UpdateTargetId="DateDiv"}) %> Below is the controller code. You can see how GetDate function has a pause of 10 seconds. publicclassDefault1Controller:Controller { publicstringGetDate() { Thread.Sleep(10000); returnDateTime.Now.ToString(); } } The second way of making Ajax call in MVC is by using Jquery. In the below code you can see we are making an ajax POST call to a URL /MyAjax/getCustomer. This is done by using $.post. All this logic is put in to a function called as GetData and you can make a call to the GetData function on a button or a hyper link click event as you want. functionGetData() { varurl="/MyAjax/getCustomer"; $.post(url,function(data) { $("#txtCustomerCode").val(data.CustomerCode); $("#txtCustomerName").val(data.CustomerName); } ) }

What kind of events can be tracked in AJAX?

Figure:- tracked in AJAX

What is the difference between ActionResult and ViewResult?

ActionResult is an abstract class while ViewResult derives from ActionResult class. ActionResult has several derived classes like ViewResult ,JsonResult , FileStreamResult and so on. ActionResult can be used to exploit polymorphism and dynamism. So if you are returning different types of view dynamically ActionResult is the best thing. For example in the below code snippet you can see we have a simple action called as DynamicView. Depending on the flag (IsHtmlView) it will either return ViewResult or JsonResult.

publicActionResultDynamicView() { if(IsHtmlView) returnView();//returnssimpleViewResult else returnJson();//returnsJsonResultview }

What are the different types of results in MVC?

Note:Itsdifficulttorememberallthe12types.Butsomeimportantonesyoucanremember fortheinterviewareActionResult,ViewResultandJsonResult.Belowisadetailedlist foryourinterest. There 12 kinds of results in MVC, at the top is ActionResultclass which is a base class that canhave11subtypessas listed below: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. ViewResult - Renders a specified view to the response stream PartialViewResult - Renders a specified partial view to the response stream EmptyResult - An empty response is returned RedirectResult - Performs an HTTP redirection to a specified URL RedirectToRouteResult - Performs an HTTP redirection to a URL that is determined by the routing engine, based on given route data 6. JsonResult - Serializes a given ViewData object to JSON format 7. JavaScriptResult - Returns a piece of JavaScript code that can be executed on the client 8. ContentResult - Writes content to the response stream without requiring a view 9. FileContentResult - Returns a file to the client 10. FileStreamResult - Returns a file to the client, which is provided by a Stream 11. FilePathResult - Returns a file to the client

What are ActionFiltersin MVC?

ActionFilters helps you to perform logic while MVC action is executing or after a MVC action has executed.

Figure:- ActionFiltersin MVC Action filters are useful in the following scenarios:1. 2. 3. 4. Implement post-processinglogicbeforethe action happens. Cancel a current execution. Inspect the returned value. Provide extra data to the action.

You can create action filters by two ways:-

Inline action filter. Creating an ActionFilter attribute. To create a inline action attribute we need to implement IActionFilter interface.The IActionFilter interface has two methods OnActionExecuted and OnActionExecuting. We can implement pre-processing logic or cancellation logic in these methods. publicclassDefault1Controller:Controller,IActionFilter { publicActionResultIndex(Customerobj) { returnView(obj); } voidIActionFilter.OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContextfilterContext) { Trace.WriteLine("ActionExecuted"); } voidIActionFilter.OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContextfilterContext) { Trace.WriteLine("Actionisexecuting"); } } The problem with inline action attribute is that it cannot be reused across controllers. So we can convert the inline action filter to an action filter attribute. To create an action filter attribute we need to inherit from ActionFilterAttribute and implement IActionFilter interface as shown in the below code. publicclassMyActionAttribute:ActionFilterAttribute,IActionFilter { voidIActionFilter.OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContextfilterContext) { Trace.WriteLine("ActionExecuted"); } voidIActionFilter.OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContextfilterContext) { Trace.WriteLine("Actionexecuting"); } } Later we can decorate the controllers on which we want the action attribute to execute. You can see in the below code I have decorated the Default1Controller with MyActionAttribute class which was created in the previous code. [MyActionAttribute] publicclassDefault1Controller:Controller { publicActionResultIndex(Customerobj) { returnView(obj); } }

Can we create our custom view engine using MVC?

Yes, we can create our own custom view engine in MVC. To create our own custom view engine we need to follow 3 steps:Let say we want to create a custom view engine where in the user can type a command like <DateTime> and it should display the current date and time.

Step 1:- We need to create a class which implements IView interface. In this class we should write the logic of how the view will be rendered in the render function. Below is a simple code snippet for the same. publicclassMyCustomView:IView { privatestring_FolderPath;//Definewhereourviewsarestored publicstringFolderPath { get{return_FolderPath;} set{_FolderPath=value;} } publicvoidRender(ViewContextviewContext,System.IO.TextWriterwriter) { //Parsinglogic<dateTime> //readtheviewfile stringstrFileData=File.ReadAllText(_FolderPath); //weneedtoandreplace<datetime>datetime.nowvalue stringstrFinal=strFileData.Replace("<DateTime>",DateTime.Now.ToString()); //thisreplaceddatahastosentfordisplay writer.Write(strFinal); } } Step 2 :-We need to create a class which inherits from VirtualPathProviderViewEngine and in this class we need to provide the folder path and the extension of the view name. For instance for razor the extension is cshtml , for aspx the view extension is .aspx , so in the same way for our custom view we need to provide an extension. Below is how the code looks like. You can see the ViewLocationFormats is set to the Views folder and the extension is .myview. publicclassMyViewEngineProvider:VirtualPathProviderViewEngine { //WewillcreatetheobjectofMycustomeview publicMyViewEngineProvider()//constructor { //DefinethelocationoftheViewfile this.ViewLocationFormats=newstring[]{"~/Views/{1}/{0}.myview", "~/Views/Shared/{0}.myview"};//locationandextensionofourviews } protectedoverrideIViewCreateView(ControllerContextcontrollerContext,string viewPath,stringmasterPath) { varphysicalpath=controllerContext.HttpContext.Server.MapPath(viewPath); MyCustomViewobj=newMyCustomView();//Customviewengineclass obj.FolderPath=physicalpath;//setthepathwheretheviewswillbestored returnobj;//returnedthisviewparesinglogicsothatitcanberegisteredin theviewenginecollection } protectedoverrideIViewCreatePartialView(ControllerContextcontrollerContext,string partialPath) { varphysicalpath=controllerContext.HttpContext.Server.MapPath(partialPath); MyCustomViewobj=newMyCustomView();//Customviewengineclass obj.FolderPath=physicalpath;//setthepathwheretheviewswillbestored returnobj;//returnedthisviewparesinglogicsothatitcanberegisteredin theviewenginecollection } } Step 3:- We need to register the view in the custom view collection. The best place to register the custom view engine in the ViewEngines collection is the global.asax file. Below is the code snippet for the same. protectedvoidApplication_Start() { //Step3:registerthisobjectintheviewenginecollection

ViewEngines.Engines.Add(newMyViewEngineProvider()); <spanclass="Appletabspan"style="whitespace:pre;"> </span>.. } Below is a simple output of the custom view written using the commands defined at the top.

Figure:-customviewengineusingMVC If you invoke this view you should see the following output.

How to send result back in JSON format in MVC?

In MVC we have JsonResult class by which we can return back data in JSON format. Below is a simple sample code which returns back Customer object in JSON format using JsonResult. publicJsonResultgetCustomer() { Customerobj=newCustomer(); obj.CustomerCode="1001"; obj.CustomerName="Shiv"; returnJson(obj,JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); } Below is the JSON output of the above code if you invoke the action via the browser.

What is WebAPI?
HTTP is the most used protocol.For past many years browser was the most preferred client by which we can consume data exposed over HTTP. But as years passed by client variety started spreading out. We had demand to consume data on HTTP from clients like mobile,javascripts,windows application etc. For satisfying the broad range of client REST was the proposed approach. You can read more about REST from WCF chapter. WebAPI is the technology by which you can expose data over HTTP following REST principles.

But WCF SOAP also does the same thing, so how does WebAPI differ?
SOAP Size Heavy weight because of complicated WSDL structure. WEB API Light weight, only the necessary information is transferred. Only for HTTP protocol

Protocol Independent of protocols. To parse SOAP message, the client needs to understand WSDL format. Writing custom code for parsing WSDL is Output of WebAPI are simple string Formats a heavy duty task. If your client is smart enough to message,JSON,Simple XML format etc. So writing create proxy objects like how we have in .NET (add parsing logic for the same in very easy. reference) then SOAP is easier to consume and call. WEB API follows REST principles. (Please refer about Principles SOAP follows WS-* specification. REST in WCF chapter).

With WCF also you can implement REST,So why "WebAPI"?

WCF was brought in to implement SOA, never the intention was to implement REST."WebAPI'" is built from scratch and the only goal is to create HTTP services using REST. Due to the one point focus for creating REST service WebAPI is more preferred.

How to implement WebAPI in MVC?

Below are the steps to implement "webAPI" :Step1:-Create the project using the "WebAPI" template.

Figure:- implement WebAPI in MVC Step 2:- Once you have created the project you will notice that the controller now inherits from "ApiController" and you can now implement "post","get","put" and "delete" methods of HTTP protocol. publicclassValuesController:ApiController { //GETapi/values publicIEnumerable<string>Get() { returnnewstring[]{"value1","value2"}; } //GETapi/values/5 publicstringGet(intid) {

return"value"; } //POSTapi/values publicvoidPost([FromBody]stringvalue) { } //PUTapi/values/5 publicvoidPut(intid,[FromBody]stringvalue) { } //DELETEapi/values/5 publicvoidDelete(intid) { } } Step 3:-If you make a HTTP GET call you should get the below results.

Figure:- HTTP

How can we detect that a MVC controller is called by POST or GET?

To detect if the call on the controller is POST action or a GET action we can use Request.HttpMethod property as shown in the below code snippet. public ActionResult SomeAction() { if (Request.HttpMethod == "POST") { return View("SomePage"); } else { return View("SomeOtherPage"); } }