How to assign a List to a ViewBag and use in JavaScript?

Question

I create and assign values to a list of strings in my controller. I want to assign the list of values to a JavaScript variable. How can I do this?

Controller:

List<string> fruits = new List<string>();
list.Add('Apple');
list.Add('Banana');
list.Add('Kiwi');
ViewBag.FruitList = fruits;

View:

var fruitList = '@ViewBag.FruitList';

When I run the program fruitList comes back as System.Collections.Generic.List 1[System.String]

Possible duplicate. Have you seen this http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6192950/store-a-value-in-viewbag-from-javascript — Matt, Jul 22 '15 at 19:32
Return json from your controller then `$.getJSON()` on the client — brroshan, Jul 22 '15 at 19:34
Why does List<> require this but say a ViewBag with a string does not? — GlobalJim, Jul 22 '15 at 19:40

Ehsan Sajjad · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-22T19:39:18.020

Way 1:

You can use Html.Raw() and Json.Encode for it:

var fruitList = @Html.Raw(Json.Encode(ViewBag.FruitList));

you can use Json.Parse() in combination with Html.Raw() to parse the raw string in to json:

var fruitList = JSON.parse('@Html.Raw(ViewBag.FruitList)');

you can also use JsonConvert class using NewtonSoft JSON to serialize it to json:

var fruitList = '@JsonConvert.Serialize(ViewBag.FruitList)';