asp.net mvc 3 - 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);
    }

Answer 1

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.