ASP.NET MVC creating Model from Database (Postgres) - asp.net-mvc

Question

Please forgive me if this question is too stupid but I just started learning ASP for few days...
So I decided to make some simple Web application which will dispaly data from database (Postgres).
To connect to DataBase I using NpgsqlConnection class. I saw few tutorials how to connect to DB i.e. here, but almoust everywhere they are using MSSQL and nowhere I cant find solutions for my case.
So I would like to have model which will be contains all fetched data within I will be able to iterate like this:
<% foreach (var item in Model)
{ %>
<tr>
<td><%: item.Title %></td>
<td><%: String.Format("{0:g}", item.ReleaseDate) %></td>
<td><%: item.Genre %></td>
<td><%: item.Rating %></td>
<td><%: String.Format("{0:F}", item.Price) %></td>
</tr>
<% } %>
So How I should do to achieve this?
I thought to create class
public class Person{
int id;
string Name;
string Surname;
...
}
next create generic List of type Person and after fetch data, add all fetched data to my List. And then somehow pass this List as Model.
I think there is some better way to do it right. Any Suggest?

Answer 1

Nope, you're pretty much on track.
The main difference you see from the tutorials is most of them are probably using entity framework to populate the models. Since you're using postgres...i wouldn't really recommend trying to get entity framework to work with it (I heard it's a nightmare). You can use a different Orm if you like, or just do it with your connection command and reader like you're probably used to.
The way I would do it is create a domain model that looks like just like the database model (looks like what you did with Person)
From there you would populate it in a Controller.
public class PersonController : Controller
{
//this method will map to the Person/Index route by default
public ActionResult Index()
{
//use your npgsqlconnection right now to populate whatever object you'd like
List<Person> people = PopulateFromPostgres();
//here were returning the index view with the model being a list of person
return View(people)
}
}
Then in your view (Views/Person/Index.cshtml i believe in this example)
#model List<Person>
<table>
#foreach (var item in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>#item.Title</td>
<td>#String.Format("{0:g}", item.ReleaseDate)</td>
<td>#item.Genre</td>
<td>#item.Rating </td>
<td>string.Format("{0:F}", item.Price)</td>
</tr>
}
</table>
Let me know if there's more specific area you don't understand here.