Microsoft 9GD00001 manual Starting an ASP.NET MVC Project, 251

Chapter 9: Creating Web Applications with ASP.NET MVC 251

View

Request

Controller

Model

Figure 9-1 The Model View Controller pattern

View, and the Controller, including relationships. There are variations of the relationship between Model, View, and Controller, so rather than a theoretically correct depiction of all scenarios, Figure 9-1 is a simplification that should help you get started.

In Figure 9-1, you can see that the Controller references both the View and the Model. This makes sense when you consider that the Controller is managing the operation of the application. The Controller executes in response to a user request. Since the Controller is also responsible for coordinating activity between the Model and the View, you can see the relationship in Figure 9-1 where the Controller references the Model. The View references the Model because the View must bind data to the user interface and needs to know what data is available. The Model does not reference the View or the Controller. The Model is an object that holds data and any other members that help manage that data, such as methods for performing validation.

A typical sequence of operations for an ASP.NET MVC operation starts with a request to a Controller. The Controller will perform the actions requested, working with the Model. The Controller will then give the Model to a View and run the View. The View will display Model data and interact with the user for any screen operations. Based on user interaction with the View, more requests will be made to a Controller to repeat this process. The rest of this chapter shows you how to write the code to make this process work, starting with creating a new ASP.NET MVC project.

Starting an ASP.NET MVC Project

Just as with any other project in VS, you open the New Project window by selecting File New Project. Then create an ASP.NET MVC 2 Web Application project named MyShopCS (MyShopVB for VB). VS will ask if you want to create a test project, and