Category: App Services

To pass object from controller method to controller method use this extension methid;

public static class TempDataExtensions
{
    public static void Put<T>(this ITempDataDictionary tempData, string key, T value) where T : class
    {
        tempData[key] = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(value);
    }

    public static T Get<T>(this ITempDataDictionary tempData, string key) where T : class
    {
        object o;
        tempData.TryGetValue(key, out o);
        return o == null ? null : JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>((string)o);
    }
}

And, you can use them as follows:

Say objectA is of type ClassA. You can add this to the temp data dictionary using the above mentioned extension method like this:

TempData.Put("key", objectA);

And to retrieve it you can do this:

var value = TempData.Get<ClassA>("key") where value retrieved will be of type ClassA

To configure TempData in ASP.NET Core, Refer to this article

Reference

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34638823/store-complex-object-in-tempdata

Refer to following code;

TempData["error"] = true;
return RedirectToAction("YourViewName", "YourControllerName);       

On Redirect, TempData will become NULL. To solve this, try string test first;

On first controller method, set this;
TempData["error"] = "There is an error"

On a second controller method, get this;
var message = TempData["error"]

if you can see the message in second controller, no need to make any configuration changes. The problem is with your complex object serialization/deserialization

If TempData string (shown above) doesn’t work, then you need to make these configuration changes.

builder.Services.Configure<CookieTempDataProviderOptions>(options =>
{
    options.Cookie.Name = "TEMPDATA";
    //you have to avoid setting SameSiteMode.Strict here 
    options.Cookie.SameSite = SameSiteMode.Lax;
    options.Cookie.IsEssential = true;
   
});

We can pass values as query string in RedirectToAction method but we don’t want to show sensitive data in URL. So the alternate is to pass it as TempData that is using session at the backend or simply use Session.

Here is a simple comparison;

If you like to store/retrieve complex objects between controllers using TempData, use this extension method;

Reference

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/app-state?view=aspnetcore-8.0#tempdata

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/microsoft.aspnetcore.mvc.cookietempdataprovideroptions.cookie?view=aspnetcore-7.0