Illegal characters in path when calling the index view from my controller

Question

I am receiving an ArgumentException when invoking the index action of one of my controllers and I am not sure why. The error message is the following:

Server Error in '/' Application.

Illegal characters in path.

[ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.]
 System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path) +126
 System.IO.Path.Combine(String path1, String path2) +38

I am not sure why this is happening. here is the code from the controller:

    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        var glaccounts = db.GLAccounts.ToString();
        return View(glaccounts);
    }

I wonder what laws we're breaking

Kind Contributor
– Kind Contributor

2018-06-13 01:10:05 +00:00
Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 1:10 — Kind Contributor
– Kind Contributor, Commented Jun 13, 2018 at 1:10

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-12 12:54:05Z

64

The ambiguity comes from the fact that you are using string as model type. This ambiguity could be resolved like this:

public ActionResult Index()
{
    var glaccounts = db.GLAccounts.ToString();
    return View((object)glaccounts);
}

or:

public ActionResult Index()
{
    object glaccounts = db.GLAccounts.ToString();
    return View(glaccounts);
}

or:

public ActionResult Index()
{
    var glaccounts = db.GLAccounts.ToString();
    return View("Index", glaccounts);
}

Notice the cast to object to pick the proper method overload as there is already a View method which takes a string argument which represents the view name so you cannot throw whatever you want to it => if it's a string it must be the name of the view and this view must exist.

answered Apr 12, 2011 at 12:54

Darin Dimitrov

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4 Comments

gyurisc Over a year ago

Thanks for the answer. I should have posted this question instead of spending a couple of hours of dismantling my MVC project and adding MVC source code. Thanks a lot!

Saeed Neamati Over a year ago

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've found in ASP.NET MVC. Why we can't pass a string as the model to a view?

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

@SaeedNeamati, this has nothing to do with ASP.NET MVC. It is the way method overloading works in .NET in general.

Saeed Neamati Over a year ago

The View() method takes an object as its model. So, technically, because all object in .NET are inherited directly or indirectly from object class, you can pass a string as the model. Then, what is has to do with the method overloading? Besides, this error means that a bad request has been sent to the server, a bad URL. Maybe ASP.NET MVC, sends an internal request (something like URL rewriting) to get the view.

gyurisc · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-07 08:05:50Z

I found it finally. It is a really embarassing typo by me. I mistyped the code:

    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        var glaccounts = db.GLAccounts.ToString();
        return View(glaccounts);
    }

instead of:

    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        var glaccounts = db.GLAccounts.ToList();
        return View(glaccounts);
    }

Then the framework wanted to load a view file, like this:

"~/Views/GLAccount/SELECT \r\n[Extent1].[Id] AS [Id], \r\n[Extent1].[OrgDefinitionId] AS [OrgDefinitionId], \r\n[Extent1].[GLAccountId] AS 
[GLAccountId], \r\n[Extent1].[Name] AS [Name], \r\n[Extent1].[StartDate] AS [StartDate], 
\r\n[Extent1].[EndDate] AS [EndDate]\r\nFROM [GLAccounts] AS [Extent1].aspx"

Hopefully, I will save couple of hours of debugging for someone else by posting this :(

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