This blog post shows how to use the open-source NoSQL database MongoDB in an ASP.NET MVC 3 web application. The showcase web application uses FluentMongo that adds LINQ-support for the 10gen MongoDB C# driver. Summarized the application demonstrates how to perform the basic CRUD (create, read, update and delete) database operations.
Before running the example web application, please make sure that a MongoDB server is up and running on your machine (see MongoDB Quickstart for Windows).
We start with an empty ASP.NET MVC 3 web application and use the NuGet package manager to install the following packages:
- FluentMongo (installs also the dependent MongoDB C# driver)
- MvcContrib (used in this example to easily create HTML grids)
After including the required NuGet packages we add our User model (Models/User.cs):
public class User { [BsonId] public ObjectId ObjectId; [ScaffoldColumn(false)] public String Id { get { return ObjectId.ToString(); } set { ObjectId = new ObjectId(value); } } [DisplayName("First Name")] [Required] public String FirstName { get; set; } [DisplayName("Last Name")] [Required] public String LastName { get; set; } } |
Since ASP.NET MVC 3 does not support binding MongoDB’s ObjectId (used by the database to identify the records) the User model contains two id properties:
- ObjectId: The (BSON) id used by MongoDB to identify the records in the database
- Id: The (string) id used by the ASP.NET MVC 3 application in GET and POST request data to identify the records
The getter and setter in the Id attribute “synchronizes” the string and the BSON value. In a real world project one should solve this problem in a more generic way, e.g. by implementing a custom ModelBinder or by separating database entities from MVC models.
Next, we implement the HomeController (Controllers/HomeController.cs) as follows:
public class HomeController : Controller { private MongoCollection<User> _users; public HomeController() { MongoDatabase database = MongoDatabase.Create("mongodb://localhost:27017/TestMvc3MongoDB"); _users = database.GetCollection<User>("Users"); } [HttpGet] public ActionResult Delete(String id) { var user = _users.AsQueryable().FirstOrDefault(e => e.Id == id); if (user != null) _users.Remove(Query.EQ("_id", new ObjectId(id))); return RedirectToAction("Index"); } [HttpGet] public ActionResult Edit(String id) { var user = _users.AsQueryable().FirstOrDefault(e => e.Id == id) ?? new User(); return View(user); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Edit(User user) { if (ModelState.IsValid) { _users.Save(user); return RedirectToAction("Index"); } return View(user); } public ActionResult Index() { return View(_users.AsQueryable()); } } |
In a last step we add the view that shows all records (Views/Home/Index.cshtml):
@Html.Grid(Model).Columns(column => {
column.For(x => x.Id).Named("Person ID");
column.For(x => x.FirstName).Named("First Name");
column.For(x => x.LastName).Named("Last Name");
column.For(x => Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", new { id = x.Id }));
column.For(x => Html.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = x.Id }));
})
@Html.ActionLink("Create Record", "Edit") |
and the view that shows the form to edit and create records (Views/Home/Edit.cshtml):
@using (Html.BeginForm())
{
@Html.Hidden("Id", Model.Id);
@Html.EditorForModel(Model)
<input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
} |
You can download the Visual Studio 2010 project containing all the source code here.