Can a Web Api controller render a view as a string? - asp.net-web-api

Question

I would like to write a Web Api controller action that would send an email depending on results. I would like to use an MVC View or Partial view with a model of data to render the body of the email.
Is there a way to do this?
I would like something like this:
public class NotificationApiController : ApiController
{
private IMkpContext db;
public string ViewNotifications()
{
var dataModel = GetDataModel();
if (dataModel != null)
{
SendEmail(dataModel.ToAddress, dataModel.FromAddress, dataModel.Subject, RenderBody("viewName", dataModel);
}
return string.Empty;
}
}
Where RenderBody would look up the viewName, populate it with data from dataModel, and render the View as a string.

Answer 1

If you don´t want to go with the RazorEngine approach suggested in the comments, you could define a class like this:
public static class ViewUtil
{
public static string RenderPartial(string partialName, object model)
{
var sw = new StringWriter();
var httpContext = new HttpContextWrapper(HttpContext.Current);
// point to an empty controller
var routeData = new RouteData();
routeData.Values.Add("controller", "EmptyController");
var controllerContext = new ControllerContext(new RequestContext(httpContext, routeData), new EmptyController());
var view = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(controllerContext, partialName).View;
view.Render(new ViewContext(controllerContext, view, new ViewDataDictionary { Model = model }, new TempDataDictionary(), sw), sw);
return sw.ToString();
}
}
class EmptyController : Controller { }