Render .NET Core ASP.NET MVC ViewComponent to string from controller

HomeController.cs

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public async Task<string> RenderViewComponent(string viewComponent, object args)
    {
        var sp = HttpContext.RequestServices;
            
        var helper = new DefaultViewComponentHelper(
            sp.GetRequiredService<IViewComponentDescriptorCollectionProvider>(),
            HtmlEncoder.Default,
            sp.GetRequiredService<IViewComponentSelector>(),
            sp.GetRequiredService<IViewComponentInvokerFactory>(),
            sp.GetRequiredService<IViewBufferScope>());
        
        using (var writer = new StringWriter())
        {
            var context = new ViewContext(ControllerContext, NullView.Instance, ViewData, TempData, writer, new HtmlHelperOptions());
            helper.Contextualize(context);
            var result = await helper.InvokeAsync(viewComponent, args);
            result.WriteTo(writer, HtmlEncoder.Default);
            await writer.FlushAsync();
            return writer.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Hi Paul, nice work there!! I've been trying to return a ViewController using jQuery for almost 3 days now and I've been looking around everywhere for a solution until I came very close with yours.
With your code I have only been able to render the results when I returned a content from the ViewComponent return Content("Test content"); but I wasn't able to render the view that I need: return View(educations) not working. How can I make it work by returning a ViewComponent with a model inside?

P.S. I'm quite new in web development

Its doesn't work on dot net core 3.1.
NullView.Instance can't be accessed here. Since in 3.1, NullView.Instance is no longer public. It is now an internal class.
Any alternative in 3.1. Please help. It's blocking my upgrade

Hi @BIJINPALAKKAL you need to create a NullView file like this https://github.com/nopSolutions/nopCommerce/blob/develop/src/Presentation/Nop.Web.Framework/Controllers/NullView.cs