Passing Querystring data to a Model in ASP.NET MVC 2 - asp.net

I have a strongly typed view inheriting from a POCO class. I want to initialize the property of a model with a Querystring value at the time when view loads.
On the View Load I am using ViewData to the save the code :
public ActionResult Data() {
ViewData["QueryStringValue"] = this.Request.QueryString["Param1"]
return View();
}
In the HTML markup, I am using this code to initialize the model property in a hidden variable
<%:Html.HiddenFor(m=>m.Param,
Convert.ToInt32(Html.Encode(ViewData["QueryStringValue"]))) %>
m.param is a byte type.
URL of the request is somewhat like this : http://TestApp/Data/AddData?Param1=One
On View Save event, I am using model binding but issue is that I don't get to see the value of param initialized in the controller. It is always NULL.
My Save Event maps to a controller :
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult SaveData(MyData d)
{
string paramValue = d.Param; //this always returns null
BO.Save(d);
}
I inspected the HTML source and saw that the value of the hidden field itself is blank. Not sure why this is happening since the below code works and shows the param value in a heading element
<h2> <%=Html.Encode(ViewData["QueryStringValue"]) %> </h2>
I have no idea where I am going wrong on this.

I think, Instead of Passing the Querystring value in ViewData, You should set it as the Property value of your ViewModel/ Model and pass that to your View.
public ActionResult Data()
{
YourViewModel objVm=new YourViewModel();
objVm.Param=Request.QueryString["Param1"];
return View(objVm);
}
Now in your Strongly typed View, use it like this
#model YourViewModel
#using(Html.BeginForm())
{
#html.HiddenFor(#m=>m.Param);
<input type="submit" value="Save" />
}
Now Param value will be available in yout HttpPost action method
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Data(YourViewModel objVm)
{
string param=objVm.Param;
//Do whatever you want with param
}

Just made this work, Issue is with this line:
<%:Html.HiddenFor(m=>m.Param,
Convert.ToInt32(Html.Encode(ViewData["QueryStringValue"]))) %>. I stated in the question that m.Param is of type byte. I figured out that issue was with casting.
I tried this code and it worked
<%:Html.HiddenFor(m => m.Param, (byte)Convert.ToInt16(this.Request.QueryString["Param1"].ToString()))%>

Related

Asp.net mvc3 razor with multiple submit buttons

I'm using MVC3 Razor. I have 2 submit buttons setup on my view but the problem I'm having is that both submit buttons cause the validation of the model. I want to hook up individual submit buttons with specific input controls for validation.
I know this is a few months old but the solutions here seemed needlessly complex and there's no accepted answer yet. If you name your inputs the same but give them different values, you can get that value in your controller just by including a string with the name of the input as a variable. This is how I solved this problem:
View:
<input type="submit" id="EnterprisePush" name="btnSubmit" value="Push" />
<input type="submit" id="EnterprisePull" name="btnSubmit" value="Pull" />
Controller:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult EnterpriseAdmin(int id, string btnSubmit, FormCollection collection)
{
switch (btnSubmit) {
case "Push":
/* Do Something here */
break;
case "Pull":
/* Do Something else here */
break;
}
The browser is always going to submit the entire form regardless of which submit button you press.
The best solution would be to have two submit buttons with the same value for the name attribute and different values for the value attributes.
When you submit the form, the value of the button will be submitted as well. In your action which handles that form submission, you check to see the value of the button and perform the correct validation based on that.
In your form you would have something like this:
<button type="submit" name="Command" value="command1">Do Command #1</button>
<button type="submit" name="Command" value="command2">Do Command #2</button>
Your Form Model would look like this:
public class MyFormModel() {
public string Command {get;set;}
public string SomeOtherVal {get;set;}
}
Your controller\action would look like this:
public ActionResult HandleFormSubmit(MyFormModel model) {
if (model.Command == "command1") {
// do something
} else if (model.Command == "command2") {
// do something else
}
}
Firstly, you can disable client validation on your cancel button simply by adding the CSS class 'cancel' to it. See: Disable client-side validation in MVC 3 "cancel" submit button
Secondly, as well testing the submit element's form name as described above, you can use a custom action selector. Here's mine, which I originally took from the blog post shown in the comment:
/// <summary>
/// Used to vary an action method based on which button in a form was pressed. This
/// is useful but is an anti-pattern because it couples the controller to names
/// used in the form elements.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// See the example at http://weblogs.asp.net/dfindley/archive/2009/05/31/asp-net-mvc-multiple-buttons-in-the-same-form.aspx
/// </remarks>
public class AcceptButtonAttribute : ActionMethodSelectorAttribute
{
public string ButtonName { get; set; }
public override bool IsValidForRequest(ControllerContext controllerContext, MethodInfo methodInfo)
{
var req = controllerContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request;
return !string.IsNullOrEmpty(req.Form[this.ButtonName]);
}
}
In your controller:
[HttpPost]
[ActionName("Edit")]
[AcceptButton(ButtonName = "Cancel")]
public ActionResult Edit_Cancel(MyModel model)
{
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
[HttpPost]
[AcceptButton(ButtonName = "Save")]
public ActionResult Edit(MyModel model)
{
// do real work here
}
Note that you need the [ActionName("Edit")] attribute to tell MVC that although using a different method name, it is for the Edit action.
And in your View:
<input type="submit" name="Save" value="Save" />
<input type="submit" name="Cancel" value="Cancel" class="cancel" />
My solution was to do two things. Say we have a Save button and another Add Something button. When user clicks on Save we want client validation and server validation to be performed. For later button we don't want any validation to take place.
Temporarily disable client validation for second button (on click):
<input type="submit" name="submit-button" value="Save" />
<input type="submit" name="submit-button" value="Add Something" onclick="document.forms[0].noValidate = true; document.forms[0].submit();" />
Good thing about it is when JavaScript is disabled the client validation would never have taken place anyway.
Take care of server side
Similar to what Bryan is saying when you click any submit button within a form, the entire form and the clicked submit button value is posted. You can differentiate which button was clicked by the name posted. In example above when user clicks on Save button and we read Request.Form["submit-button"] in controller post action we get "Save". If user clicked on Add Something we would get "Add Something". This is the way HTML is supposed to work.
Now to get around having magic strings all over the place I usually have a public static class within the controller, like so:
public class HomeController
{
public static class Buttons
{
public const string Save = "Save";
public const string AddSomething = "Add something";
}
// Action methods
}
So you can use these for rendering form:
<input type="submit" name="submit-button" value="#HomeController.Buttons.Save" />
And you can easily read the button clicked in controller:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index(Model viewModel)
{
var buttonClicked = Request.Form["submit-button"];
switch (buttonClicked) {
case HomeController.Buttons.Save:
return Save(viewModel);
case HomeController.Buttons.AddSomething:
return AddSOmething(viewModel);
}
return View();
}
In Save method you first ask if ModelState.IsValid and return view model if not but in AddSomething method we will clear any errors:
public ActionResult AddSomething(Model viewModel)
{
ModelState.Clear();
// your code to add something to model
return View(viewModel);
}
This was you keep everything clean, tidy and testable. And you can introduce a constant for submit-button html name attribute. It might be possible to do all the constants with T4MVC too. A similar solution applies to when you need a "auto postback" combo box, except you need a hidden field that is set via onchange event of the select element.
Hope this helps.
Just use this code as a template:
#{
var nextButtonVal = "Next >>";
var backButtonVal = "<< Back";
if (IsPost) {
if(Request["navigate"].Equals(backButtonVal)){Response.Redirect("~/pageFoo");}
if(Request["navigate"].Equals(nextButtonVal)){Response.Redirect("~/pagebar");}
}
}
<input type="submit" value="#backButtonVal" title="Back" name="navigate"/>
<input type="submit" value="#nextButtonVal" title="Next" name="navigate"/>
One final thing I would do is instead of using intelligent strings, use an enum to determine the value for each input tag. Using razor syntax:
#Enum.GetName(typeof(YourEnumType), yourEnum.WhateverValue)
then in your controller:
public ActionResult DoSomethingBasedOnEnumValue(string enumValue)
{
YourEnumType localVar = (YourEnumType)Enum.Parse(typeof(YourEnumType), enumValue);
switch(localVar)
{
case YourEnumType.Action1:
//do something
break;
case YourEnumType.Action2:
//do something else
break;
}
return View();
}
If you want to have separate action for delete, try this.
add a delete action in the controller and mark it as HttpDelete,
[HttpDelete]
public ActionResult Edit(int id, string foo) {
...
}
And in the view,
button name should be X-HTTP-Method-Override and value should be DELETE
<button name="X-HTTP-Method-Override" value="DELETE" formnovalidate="formnovalidate" class="cancel">Delete</button>
note: all most all the browsers don't allow for other HTTP methods, like HEAD, PUT, or DELETE. but by add a header to the HTTP request, X-HTTP-Method-Override, that is supposed to be interpreted by the service and acted upon regardless of the actual HTTP method used. So above code will add a header to the request like X-HTTP-Method-Override: DELETE. and .net framework will do the rest of the things and direct you to delete action.
Submit button name don't come to server side if in all from this situation you are will be use [Remote] attribute for validation model property.

Html.ValidationMessage renders on all fields, regardless if they're valid or not

My model is correctly validated. If I take a peak in the validation results during debug, I will see that everything is correct. However, all my validation results will show, even if only one is invalid. Again, during debug, only one field is correctly showing up in the validation results, but when my view is rendered all our displayed:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(Widget widget)
{
if (widge.Valid)
{
// Save to db
}
retun View(widget);
}
My view:
<%# Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Views/Shared/Site.Master" AutoEventWireup="true" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<Widget>" %>
// took out a lot of html here
<form action="Create" method="post">
<input name="Widget.City" value="<%= Model.City == null ? "" : Model.City%>" />
<%= Html.ValidationMessage("Widget.City")%>
<input name="Widget.Department" value="<%= Model.Department == null ? "" : Model.Department %>" />
<%= Html.ValidationMessage("Widget.Department")%>
<button type="submit">Save</button>
</form>
Let us say City and Department are set to NotNull in my model and I correctly put in a City, but leave Department blank. Again, it will show it is invalid on the controller, with the property Department having a problem, yet in my view I'll get "may not be null" messages for both properties. If I have 4 properties and 4 ValidationMessage tags in my view, even if one property is not valid ... all 4 will show. What's the deal?
If I'm not mistaken, I think you want to be using
Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.City)
Not what you're using currently in your view.
Also... Since you're using a strongly typed view, you should be checking ModelState.IsValid to determine whether or not you should save your Widget. That is if you're using data annotations on your view model.
What are you using as your input to the [HttpGet] action of the view?
Since you're using the format Widget.Property the view expects the model to have a Widget property containing the data for the widget.. i.e it is looking for Model.Widget.Property but your model only contains Model.Property. Based on the code posted here, you're only passing the widget back to the view and it will interpret that as having a NULL Widget property, thus triggering all NotNull validation.
A solution here is to assign the Widget post model (what you're accepting in the [HttpPost] action) to a Widget property of the of the model you're passing back to the view.
public class CreateViewModel
{
public Widget Widget { get; set; }
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(Widget widget)
{
if (widge.Valid)
{
// Save to db
}
var viewModel = new CreateModel() { Widget = widget };
retun View( viewModel );
}
Hopefully I articulated that correctly.. Its been a long day = )

How to bind Lists of a custom view model to a dropDownList an get the selected value after POST in ASP.NET MVC?

I have following problem. In my view model I defined some list properties as follows:
public class BasketAndOrderSearchCriteriaViewModel
{
List<KeyValuePair> currencies;
public ICollection<KeyValuePair> Currencies
{
get
{
if (this.currencies == null)
this.currencies = new List<KeyValuePair>();
return this.currencies;
}
}
List<KeyValuePair> deliverMethods;
public ICollection<KeyValuePair> DeliveryMethods
{
get
{
if (this.deliverMethods == null)
this.deliverMethods = new List<KeyValuePair>();
return this.deliverMethods;
}
}
}
This view model is embedded in another view model:
public class BasketAndOrderSearchViewModel
{
public BasketAndOrderSearchCriteriaViewModel Criteria
{
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough]
get { return this.criteria; }
}
}
I use 2 action methods; one is for the GET and the other for POST:
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Search(BasketAndOrderSearchViewModel model){...}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult SubmitSearch(BasketAndOrderSearchViewModel model){...}
In the view I implement the whole view model by using the EditorFor-Html Helper which does not want to automatically display DropDownLists for List properties!
1. Question: How can you let EditorFor display DropDownLists?
Since I could not figure out how to display DropDownLists by using EditorFor, I used the DropDownList Html helper and filled it through the view model as follows:
public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> DeliveryMethodAsSelectListItem()
{
List<SelectListItem> list = new List<SelectListItem>();
list.Add(new SelectListItem()
{
Selected = true,
Text = "<Choose Delivery method>",
Value = "0"
});
foreach (var item in this.DeliveryMethods)
{
list.Add(new SelectListItem()
{
Selected = false,
Text = item.Value,
Value = item.Key
});
}
return list;
}
My 2. question: As you can see I pass my view model to the action metho with POST attribute! Is there a way to get the selected value of a DropDownList get binded to the passed view model? At the moment all the DropDownList are empty and the selected value can only be fetched by the Request.Form which I definitely want to avoid!
I would greatly appreciate some ideas or tips on this!
For those like me that got to this post these days I'd recommend you to fully download the tutorial from http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/mvc-music-store-part-1 which covers this and most of the common techniques related with .NET MVC applications.
Anyway Really usefull your post and answers man (If I could vote you I would :)
Let's try to take on this one:
Answer to Question 1: How can you let EditorFor display DropDownLists?
When you call Html.EditorFor() you can pass extra ViewData values to the EdiorTemplate View:
<%: Html.EditorFor(model => Model.Criteria, new { DeliveryMethods = Model.DeliveryMethods, Currencies = Model.Currencies}) %>
Now you have ViewData["DeliveryMethods"] and ViewData["Currencies"] initialized and available inside your EditorTemplate.
In your EditorTemplate you somehow need to call and convert those entries into DropDowns / SelectLists.
Assuming you've got an ascx file of type System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<BasketAndOrderSearchCriteriaViewModel> you could do the following:
<%: Html.LabelFor(model => model.DeliveryMethods) %>
<%: Html.DropDownList("SelectedDeliveryMethod", new SelectList(ViewData["DeliveryMethods"] as IEnumerable, "SelectedDeliveryMethod", "Key", "value", Model.SelectedDeliveryMethod)) %>
Same goes for the Currencies.
<%: Html.LabelFor(model => model.Currencies) %>
<%: Html.DropDownList("SelectedCurrency", new SelectList(ViewData["Currencies"] as IEnumerable, "SelectedDeliveryMethod", "Key", "value", Model.SelectedCurrency)) %>
This setup will make your DeliveryMethodAsSelectListItem() obsolete and you can use any kind of list. Means you are not bound to KeyValuePairs. You'll just need to adjust your call on Html.DropDownList() from now on.
As you can see, I have introduced some new properties to your BasketAndOrderSearchCriteriaViewModel:
Model.SelectedDeliveryMethod
Model.SelectedCurrency
They are used to store the currently selected value.
Answer to Question 2: Is there a way to get the selected value of a DropDownList get binded to the passed view model?
In the EditorFor template we are passing the newly created Model.SelectedDeliveryMethod and Model.SelectedCurrency properties as the SelectedValue Parameter (See 4th Overload of the DropDownList Extension Method).
Now that we have the View doing it's job: How can we get the currently selected value inside the POST Action?
This is really easy now:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult SubmitSearch(BasketAndOrderSearchViewModel model)
{
...
var selectedDeliveryMethod = model.Criteria.SelectedDeliveryMethod;
var selectedCurrency model.Criteria.SelectedDeliveryMethod;
...
}
Note: I don't have an IDE to test it right now, but it should do the trick or at least show you in which direction to go.

What am I misunderstanding about how Html.TextBoxFor works

I'm just trying to get back into .NET MVC with the new release and I can't get my head round the way may view is binding to the DataModel.
I have a model with a property "first_name" and within an HTML form I have the following
<%= Html.TextBox("first_name", Model.first_name)%>
<%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.first_name) %>
<input type="text" name="first_name" id="first_name" class="myLabel"
value="<%=Model.first_name %>" />
In an action on a controller if I set the first_name property on my model and do
mymodelObject.first_name = "Test";
return View(mymodelObject);
What is the reason only the third textbox picks up on this first_name value and the other two don't?
Edit:
I probably haven't explained this well enough, sorry. Imagine I have 2 controller methods -
public ActionResult Register()
{
Registration model = new Registration();
model.first_name = "test";
return View(model);
}
With this one either binding works.
After this has been displayed I then click a button on the form and try and run this:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Register(Registration_ViewData model)
{
model.first_name = "Steve";
return View(model);
}
What I'm asking is why does the 3rd but not the first 2 bind to "Steve" as the new name.
You need to clear your model state so your code would look something like:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Register(Registration model)
{
ModelState.Clear();
model.first_name = "Steve";
return View(model);
}
Because HTML helpers read the value from the ModelState and not from the model. In order the change that behavior you'll need to work with the ModelState as well.
(see: Changing model’s properties on postback)
This should work for the first two:
<%= Html.TextBox("first_name", x => x.first_name)%>
<%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.first_name) %>

Retrieving data from Html.DropDownList() in controller (ASP MVC) | string returned?

I have the following problem:
I have a form in site/banen (currently local running webserver) which is using a SQL database. The link is made using ADO.net and is instantiated in the controller in the following way:
DBModelEntities _entities;
_entities = new DBModelEntities(); // this part is in the constructor of the controller.
Next, I use this database to fill a Html.DropDownList() in my view. This is done in two steps. At the controller side we have in the constructor:
ViewData["EducationLevels"] = this.GetAllEducationLevels();
and a helper method:
public SelectList GetAllEducationLevels()
{
List<EducationLevels> lstEducationLevels = _entities.EducationLevels.ToList();
SelectList slist = new SelectList(lstEducationLevels, "ID", "Name");
return slist;
}
In the view I have the following:
<% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%>
<fieldset>
<legend>Fields</legend>
<!-- various textfields here -->
<p>
<label for="EducationLevels">EducationLevels:</label>
<!-- <%= Html.DropDownList("EducationLevels", ViewData["EducationLevels"] as SelectList)%> -->
<%= Html.DropDownList("EducationLevels", "..select option..")%>
</p>
<p>
<input type="submit" value="Create" />
</p>
</fieldset>
<% } %>
Now, the form is rendered correctly when I browse to the create page. I can select etc. But when selected I have to use that value to save in my new model to upload to the database. This is where it goes wrong. I have the following code to do this in my controller:
//
// POST: /Banen/Create
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Create(FormCollection form)
{
// set rest of information which has to be set automatically
var vacatureToAdd = new Vacatures();
//vacatureToAdd.EducationLevels = form["EducationLevels"];
// Deserialize (Include white list!)
TryUpdateModel(vacatureToAdd);
// Validate
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(vacatureToAdd.Title))
ModelState.AddModelError("Title", "Title is required!");
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(vacatureToAdd.Content))
ModelState.AddModelError("Content", "Content is required!");
// Update the variables not set in the form
vacatureToAdd.CreatedAt = DateTime.Now; // Just created.
vacatureToAdd.UpdatedAt = DateTime.Now; // Just created, so also modified now.
vacatureToAdd.ViewCount = 0; // We have just created it, so no views
vacatureToAdd.ID = GetGuid(); // Generate uniqueidentifier
try
{
// TODO: Add insert logic here
_entities.AddToVacatures(vacatureToAdd);
_entities.SaveChanges();
// Return to listing page if succesful
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
catch (Exception e)
{
return View();
}
}
#endregion
It gives the error:
alt text http://www.bastijn.nl/zooi/error_dropdown.png
I have found various topics on this but all say you can retrieve by just using:
vacatureToAdd.EducationLevels = form["EducationLevels"];
Though this returns a string for me. Since I'm new to ASP.net I think I am forgetting to tell to select the object to return and not a string. Maybe this is the selectedValue in the part where I make my SelectList but I can't figure out how to set this correctly. Of course I can also be complete on a sidetrack.
Sidenote: currently I'm thinking about having a seperate model like here.
Any help is appreciated.
You can't return an object from usual <SELECT> tag wich is rendered by Html.DropDownList() method, but only string variable could be returned. In your case ID of EducationLevels object will be send to the server. You should define and use one more custom helper method to reconstruct this object by ID.

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