MVC 3 get ActionResult of an action that is defined on a different controller

Question

Problem:

What I need is something similar to @Html.RenderAction("action","controller") , but one that I can use from inside a different controller. This for example:

public class FirstController : Controller
{
   public ActionResult GetErDone()
   {
        return View();
   }
}

public class SecondController : Controller
{
   public ActionResult Index()
   {
        ActionResult coolResult = 
               Helper.GetActionResult("GetErDone", "FirstController");

        return View();
   }
}

Progress:

I have begun to strip/reform the actual @Html.Action() method but it really has too many internal helper dependencies and I am thinking this shouldn't be that tough. What I have so far is:

    private void TestCreateActionFromDifferentController(RouteValueDictionary routeValues, string controllerName, string actionName)
    {
        var httpContext = this.HttpContext;
        var routeData = this.RouteData;
        routeData.Values["action"] = (object)actionName;

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(controllerName))
            routeData.Values["controller"] = (object)controllerName;

        IController myController = ControllerBuilder.Current.GetControllerFactory().CreateController(new RequestContext(httpContext, routeData) , "staticpages");
    }

This works partially of course (minus the many shortcomings like area data tokens etc) but still there is no way other than reflection to get to the MyActionResult object.

Summary:

When inside a controller, what is a way to get an ActionResult from an action that is defined on a different controller, ?

Update:

More specifically, I am trying to use something like System.Web.Mvc.Html.ChildActionExtensions.ChildActionMvcHandler but one that doesnt execute, rather it returns the ActionResult

Answer 1

Not sure why you want to return a ActionResult from a another controller. Possibly you could provide more details to understand us problem domain.

I think You could consider to use BaseController and declare a Static Method GetErrorDone with return results.

This method can be called from All Child Controllers.

---

OR 2nd Answer

Consider to just Redirect it to required Action using Controller.RedirectToAction

e.g. RedirectToAction("action name" "controller Name")