MVC paging with linq to sql and html helper class

To use paging in MVC you need to first create structure to pass values form page to HTML Helper class so first create a class to keep and pass the page information

public class PagingInfo
{
    public int TotalItems { get; set; }
    public int ItemsPerPage { get; set; }
    public int CurrentPage { get; set; }

    public int TotalPages
    {
        get { return (int)Math.Ceiling((decimal)TotalItems / ItemsPerPage); }
    }
}

It is just a convenient class for passing data between controller and the view, keep it separate from the domain model classes.

To keep helpers separate create a new folder HtmlHelpers

Create a new calss in this folder named PagingHelpers, we will create html helper method in this class with name PageLinks. Let's create the method

public static class PagingHelpers
    {
        public static MvcHtmlString PageLinks(this HtmlHelper html, 
                         PagingInfo pagingInfo, Func<int, string> pageUrl)
        {
            if(pagingInfo.TotalPages == 1)  
               return MvcHtmlString.Create(String.Empty);

            StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();        
            for (Int index = 0; index < pagingInfo.TotalPages; index++)
            {
                TagBuilder tag = new TagBuilder("a"); // Construct an <a> tag
                tag.MergeAttribute("href", pageUrl(index));                        
                tag.InnerHtml = (index + 1).ToString();
                if (i == pagingInfo.CurrentPage)
                  tag.AddCssClass("selected");
                result.Append(tag.ToString());                   
            }  
            return MvcHtmlString.Create(result.ToString());
        }
    }

The Func parameters provides the ability to pass in a delegate that will be used to generate the links to view other pages.

Remember that an extension method is available for use only when the namespace that contains it is in scope. There are two way to make it available 1. Add namespace with using 2. For Razor add @using statement to every view or add a configuration entry to the Web.config file, like this

 <system.web>
     <pages>
      <namespaces>
        <add namespace="System.Web.Helpers" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
        <add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
      </namespaces>
    </pages>
  </system.web>

Every namespace that we need to refer in a Razor view needs to be declared either in this way or in the view itself with an @using statement.

New create a view model

public class QuestionsListViewModel 
{
   public IEnumerable<Question> Questions{ get; set; }
   public PagingInfo PagingInfo { get; set; }
}

Now we need to update QuestionController class to use the QuestionsListViewModel class to provide the view with details of questions to display on the page and detail of the pagination, so let's do it

public ActionResult List(int page = 1)
{
   QuestionsListViewModel viewModel = new QuestionsListViewModel
   {
       Questions = QuestionRepository.Questions
                                    .OrderBy(p => p.QuestionID)
                                    .Skip((page - 1) * PageSize)
                                    .Take(PageSize),
       PagingInfo = new PagingInfo
       {
                CurrentPage = page,
                ItemsPerPage = PageSize,
                TotalItems = QuestionRepository.Questions.Count()
        }
   };            
   return View(viewModel);
}

That's we need to set now the time is to use our hard work and check the output, so do it and see the output:

<div class="pager">
       @Html.PageLinks(Model.PagingInfo, x => Url.Action("List", new {page = x}))
</div>

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