Asp.Net MVC 3 ModelBinding Arrays - asp.net-mvc-3

Question

I am posting something that looks like this:
FavoritePerson: "Dennis"
FavoriteAnimals: [{Type="Bear", Name="Bruno"}, {Type="Shark", Name="Sammy"}, ...]
Is there some shape for the Model to be that the DefaultModelBinder would be able to handle this? Something like
class FavoriteAnimalSubmission {
string Type {get; set;}
string Name {get; set;}
}
[HttpPost]
public MarkFavorites(string favoritePerson, FavoriteAnimalSubmission[] favoriteAnimals[]) {
...
}
Will fill favoritePerson and favoriteAnimals.Count but not the properties on each animal.

Answer 1

There is nothing out of the box that will handle a mixture of JSON (which in your case is invalid) and standard url encoded parameters. You will have to write a custom model binder if you ever needed to handle this request. Or simply modify your request to:
{
"FavoriteAnimals": [
{
"Type": "Bear",
"Name": "Bruno"
},
{
"Type": "Shark",
"Name": "Sammy"
}
],
"FavoritePerson": "Dennis"
}
and then on the server:
public class MyViewModel
{
public string FavoritePerson { get; set; }
public FavoriteAnimalSubmission[] FavoriteAnimals { get; set; }
}
public class FavoriteAnimalSubmission
{
public string Type { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
and your controller action:
[HttpPost]
public MarkFavorites(MyViewModel model)
{
...
}
and the AJAX request to invoke it:
var model =
{
"FavoriteAnimals": [
{
"Type": "Bear",
"Name": "Bruno"
},
{
"Type": "Shark",
"Name": "Sammy"
}
],
"FavoritePerson": "Dennis"
};
$.ajax({
url: '#Url.Action("MarkFavorites", "SomeController")',
type: 'POST',
contentType: 'application/json',
data: JSON.stringify(model),
success: function(result) {
// do something with the result
}
});