Ok, this was supposed to be a question asking for help getting my form to work properly. In the process of creating an example to post, I figured out what the fix is.
So now it's a become a question about why it works one way and not the other. I really cannot understand the behaviour. Have I found a bug in MVC? Or is there something I don't understand about html requests which makes this behaviour correct?
The example invloves setting the selected value in a dropdown through an enum property in a view model which is bound from the querystring (it's probaly clearer what I'm talking about if you just read the code):
Controller/Model
public class HomeController : Controller
{
public ActionResult Index(TestModel model)
{
return View(model);
}
}
public class TestModel
{
public SelectList EnumOptions { get; set; }
public TestEnum EnumValue { get; set; }
public TestModel()
{
var options = from Enum e in Enum.GetValues(typeof(TestEnum))
select new { Value = e, Name = e.ToString() };
EnumOptions = new SelectList(options, "Value", "Name", TestEnum.NotSet);
}
}
public enum TestEnum
{
NotSet = 0,
Dog = 1,
Cat = 2
}
View
#Html.DropDownListFor(m => m.EnumValue, Model.EnumOptions)
Dog numeric
Dog string
It's all pretty simple.
The question is, why doesn't the second "Dog" link work properly? Note it submits the enumValue as a numeric property, instead of as a "string" property.
But the model binder has no problem with this. The model supplied to the View is exactly the same in either case. So how does the dropdown selected value get rendered correctly in one case but not the other?
DropDownListFor looks into the modelstatedictionary for getting the current value of the field/property.
The ValueProviderResult for the second link has a value from 1.
The modelbinder knows that the requested type is a TestEnum. A 1 can be converted to Dog.
The dropwdownlist converts the value of the ValueProviderResult into a string. A 1 converts to "1" as a string. There is no entry in the selectlist with a value of "1".
Therefor the dropdownlist has a wrong current value.
Related
I'm working on the first MVC3 project at our company, and I've hit a block. No one can seem to figure out what's going on.
I have a complex Model that I'm using on the page:
public class SpaceModels : List<SpaceModel> {
public bool HideValidation { get; set; }
[Required(ErrorMessage=Utilities.EffectiveDate + Utilities.NotBlank)]
public DateTime EffectiveDate { get; set; }
public bool DisplayEffectiveDate { get; set; }
}
In the Controller, I create a SpaceModels object with blank SpaceModels for when Spaces get combined (this would be the destination Space).
// Need a list of the models for the View.
SpaceModels models = new SpaceModels();
models.EffectiveDate = DateTime.Now.Date;
models.DisplayEffectiveDate = true;
models.Add(new SpaceModel { StoreID = storeID, SiteID = siteID, IsActive = true });
return View("CombineSpaces", models);
Then in the View, I am using that SpaceModels object as the Model, and in the form making a TextBox for the Effective Date:
#model Data.SpaceModels
#using (Html.BeginForm("CombineSpaces", "Space")) {
<div class="EditLine">
<span class="EditLabel LongText">
New Space Open Date
</span>
#Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.EffectiveDate, new {
size = "20",
#class = "datecontrol",
// Make this as a nullable DateTime for Display purposes so we don't start the Calendar at 1/1/0000.
#Value = Utilities.ToStringOrDefault(Model.EffectiveDate == DateTime.MinValue ? null : (DateTime?)Model.EffectiveDate, "MM/dd/yyyy", string.Empty)
})
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.EffectiveDate)
</div>
<hr />
Html.RenderPartial("_SpaceEntry", Model);
}
The Partial View that gets rendered iterates through all SpaceModels, and creates a containing the Edit fields for the individual SpaceModel objects. (I'm using the List to use the same Views for when the Spaces get Subdivided as well.)
Then on the HttpPost, the EffectiveDate is still back at it's DateTime.MinValue default:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult CombineSpaces(SpaceModels model, long siteID, long storeID, DateTime? effectiveDate) {
// processing code
}
I added that DateTime? effectiveDate parameter to prove that the value when it gets changed does in fact come back. I even tried moving the rendering of the TextBox into the _SpaceEntry Partial View, but nothing worked there either.
I did also try using the #Html.EditorFor(m => m.EffectiveDate) in place of the #Html.TextBoxFor(), but that still returned DateTime.MinValue. (My boss doesn't like giving up the control of rendering using the #Html.EditorForModel by the way.)
There has to be something simple that I'm missing. Please let me know if you need anything else.
Looking at the source code for DefaultModelBinder, specifically BindComplexModel(), if it detects a collection type it will bind the individual elements but will not attempt to bind properties of the list object itself.
What model binding does is attempt to match the names of things or elements in the view to properties in your model or parameters in your action method. You do not have to pass all of those parameters, all you have to do is add them to your view model, then call TryUpdateModel in your action method. I am not sure what you are trying to do with SpaceModel or List but I do not see the need to inherit from the List. Im sure you have a good reason for doing it. Here is how I would do it.
The view model
public class SpacesViewModel
{
public DateTime? EffectiveDate { get; set; }
public bool DisplayEffectiveDate { get; set; }
public List<SpaceModel> SpaceModels { get; set; }
}
The GET action method
[ActionName("_SpaceEntry")]
public PartialViewResult SpaceEntry()
{
var spaceModels = new List<SpaceModel>();
spaceModels.Add(
new SpaceModel { StoreID = storeID, SiteID = siteID, IsActive = true });
var spacesVm = new SpacesViewModel
{
EffectiveDate = DateTime.Now,
DisplayEffectiveDate = true,
SpaceModels = spaceModels
};
return PartialView("_SpaceEntry", spacesVm);
}
The POST action method
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult CombineSpaces()
{
var spacesVm = new SpacesViewModel();
// this forces model binding and calls ModelState.IsValid
// and returns true if the model is Valid
if (TryUpdateModel(spacesVm))
{
// process your data here
}
return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
}
And the view
<label>Effective date: </label>
#Html.TextBox("EffectiveDate", Model.EffectiveDate.HasValue ?
Model.EffectiveDate.Value.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy") : string.empty,
new { #class = "datecontrol" })
Sometimes you need to explicitly bind form data using hidden fields such as
#Html.HiddenField("EffectiveDate", Model.EfectiveDate.)
In order to bind the properties of the SpaceModel object you can add individual properties such as SiteID to the view model or add a SpaceModel property for a single SpaceModel. If you want to successfully bind a complex model, add it as a Dictionary populated with key-value pairs rather than a List. You should then add the dictionary to the view model. You can even add a dictionary of dictionaries for hierarchical data.
I hope this helps :)
I want to get the values of dynamically added Textbox on submit button in MVC 3.
I am storing the values in hidden field and getting using FromCollection. Is there any better approach?
If you name your values something like
MyValues[x] where x is a zero based, continuously increasing integer, you can receive the string values as a list of strings named MyValues.
This trick also works for properties if the main model object, if needed.
You should check some articles about how to bind to collections In ASP mvc, they could give you some ideas.
For example http://haacked.com/archive/2008/10/23/model-binding-to-a-list.aspx
You could do something like this (written very quickly outside of editor, so may have typos/issues):
Make a view model:
public class DynamicTextBoxViewModel
{
public IList<string> DynamicTextBox { get; set; }
public int OtherStuffInViewModel { get; set; }
}
Then in your Get Action:
var model = new YourViewModel
{
DynamicTextBoxList =
new List<DynamicTextBox>
{
new DynamicTextBox
{
TextBoxText = string.Empty,
}
},
OtherStuffInViewModel = xxx,
};
return View(model)
Then in your Post Action:
You would bind everything where you wanted it.
The idea is to move all the data into a ViewModel and pass that around so you gain the benefits of the ViewModel instead of passing around FormCollection - which is sloppier and more error prone.
I am using the example at The Complete Guide To Validation In ASP.NET MVC 3 to create a RequiredIf validation attribute (it's about 1/3 down the page under the heading of "A more complex custom validator"). It all works fine with the exception of one scenario, and that is if I have the need to validate against a complex type. For example, I have the following model:
public class MemberDetailModel
{
public int MemberId { get; set; }
// Other model properties here
public MemberAddressModel HomeAddress { get; set; }
public MemberAddressModel WorkAddress { get; set; }
}
public class MemberAddressModel
{
public bool DontUse { get; set; }
// Other model properties here
[RequiredIf("DontUse", Comparison.IsEqualTo, false)]
public string StreetAddress1 { get; set; }
}
The problem is that when the attribute validation for the StreetAddress property is rendered, it get's decorated with the attribute of data-val-requiredif-other="DontUse". Unfortunately, since the address is a sub-type of the main model, it needs to be decorated with a name of HomeAddress_DontUse and not just DontUse.
Strangely enough, the validation works fine for server-side validation, but client-side unobtrusive validation fails with an JS error because JS can't find the object with a name of just "DontUse".
Therefore, I need to find a way to change the ModelClientValidationRequiredIfRule method to know that the property it is validating is a sub-type of a parent type, and if so, prepend the ParentType_ to the "otherProperty" field (e.g. otherProperty becomes HomeAddress_DontUse.
I have tried passing in typeof(MemberAddressModel) as a parameter of the attribute, but even when debugging the attribute creation, I can't seem to find any reference to the parent type of HomeAddress or WorkAddress from that type.
Based on the suggestion from The Flower Guy, I was able to come up with the following which seems to work. I simply modified the following in the customValidation.js file:
jQuery.validator.addMethod("requiredif", function (value, element, params) {
if ($(element).val() != '') return true;
var prefix = getModelPrefix(element.name); // NEW LINE
var $other = $('#' + prefix + params.other); // MODIFIED LINE
var otherVal = ($other.attr('type').toUpperCase() == "CHECKBOX") ? ($other.attr("checked") ? "true" : "false") : $other.val();
return params.comp == 'isequalto' ? (otherVal != params.value) : (otherVal == params.value);
});
I also added the following method to that file (within the JQuery block so as to be only privately accessible):
function getModelPrefix(fieldName) {
return fieldName.substr(0, fieldName.lastIndexOf(".") + 1).replace(".","_");
}
Cannot do it exactly right now, but the problem is in the client javascript function:
jQuery.validator.addMethod("requiredif" ...
The js is not sophisticated enough to cope with complex view models where there may be a model prefix. If you take a look at Microsoft's jquery.validate.unobstrusive.js (in the Scripts folder over every MVC3 application), you will find some useful methods including getModelPrefix and appendModelPrefix. You can take a similar approach and change the requiredIf validation method - take a look at the equalto method in jquery.validate.unobstrusive.js for a helping hand.
I have an input form containing several input fields. Each input field has a ElementModel which has properties basically for the label and the value. The input fields to display are specified in a XML document, so I have kind of a dynamic view with only a list of elements.
The problem is, that each element should be either displayed as a decimal or as percentage value. And of course, if it's a percentage value, the user shoud be able to input something like "45%" and the value in the model should then be 0.45.
My first thought when I found this article was to use an abstract view model class with an abstract property for the value and to define a PercentageElementModel deriving from my base ElementModelclass that makes use of a custom model binder. Unfortunately, if I use that abstract base class in my view, the data annotations made in the PercentageElementModelare ignored.
Do you have any idea of how I can solve this? I don't want to use strings in my view model and do the parsing by myself as this will break the MVC pattern. Are there some other ways to achieve my goal?
Here are some code snippets:
public abstract class ElementModel
{
public string ElementName { get; set; }
public ElementType ElementType { get; set; }
public abstract double? ElementValue { get; set; }
}
public class PercentageElementModel : ElementModel
{
[DisplayFormat(ApplyFormatInEditMode = true, DataFormatString = "{0:P2}")]
public override double? ElementValue { get; set; }
}
I came up with another solution as my problem is more a matter of display formatting than of validation: I wrote a custom ModelBinder which checks the input string of the text box. If it ends with a trailing '%' sign, I will devide the value by 100. Here's the code.
public class DoubleModelBinder : IModelBinder
{
public object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
{
var valueResult = bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue(bindingContext.ModelName);
var modelState = new ModelState { Value = valueResult };
double? actualValue = null;
try
{
// cut trailing '%'
if (valueResult.AttemptedValue.EndsWith("%"))
{
var strValue = valueResult.AttemptedValue.Substring(0, valueResult.AttemptedValue.Length - 1);
actualValue = double.Parse(strValue, valueResult.Culture) / 100;
}
else
{
actualValue = Convert.ToDouble(valueResult.AttemptedValue, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture);
}
}
catch (FormatException e)
{
modelState.Errors.Add(e);
}
bindingContext.ModelState.Add(bindingContext.ModelName, modelState);
return actualValue;
}
}
The rest happens in the view itself. To display the correct format, I use a simple ToString() method with a percentage format string assigned if needed. And if the user enters a numeric value without '%', a jQuery's blur() event will append the '%' sign to the user's input. Perfectly works for me although this is not the best answer for my own question.
I don't know if I'm missing something obvious, but I really want to grab names of clients associated with a composite key.
Controller Code:
Job job = db.Jobs.Find(id);
ViewBag.jobClientsList = new SelectList(job.JobClients.ToList(), "ClientNumber", "ClientNumber");
View Code:
<%: Html.DropDownList("ClientNumber", ViewData["JobClientsList"] as SelectList)%>
Model:
namespace Sample.CustomerService.Domain {
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
public class JobClient {
public JobClient() { }
[Key]
[Column(Order = 1)]
public virtual int JobNumber { get; set; }
[Key]
[Column(Order = 1)]
public virtual int ClientNumber { get; set; }
public virtual Client Client { get; set; }
public virtual Job Job { get; set; }
}
}
This code works, but all I get in the dropdownlist is a bunch of numbers. What I would really like is the client names associated with the numbers but I'm really not sure how to do it! I've been looking around for ages!
After re-reading your question your answer seems simpler then expected.
Check out the Select list class http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.mvc.selectlist.aspx
The constructor your using in your controller is wrong, it should be:
ViewBag.jobClientsList = new SelectList(job.JobClients.ToList(), "ClientNumber", "Client");
You were setting the text value of the selectList to be "ClientNumber" which is why you had a list of numbers and not names!
By default the select list is showing you the property that is marked [Key]
<%: Html.DropDownList("ClientNumber",
ViewData["JobClientsList"].Client as SelectList)%>
Should print the client name (assuming the primary Key on the Client object is their name, otherwise You'd need something like ViewData["JobClientsList"].Client.FullName
The best solution would be to use a ViewModel instead of using ViewBag or ViewData for this, it'll help avoid a lot of headaches both now and in the future.
What I have done in the past to get DropDownLists working is save the List to the Session Variable, and then create my SelectList in the actual DropDownList.
Controller:
Job job = db.Jobs.Find(id).ToList();
ViewBag.jobClientList = job;
View:
<%: Html.DropDownList("ClientNumber", new SelectList((If you view is strongly typed, put that here) ViewData["JobClientsList"],"ClientNumber","ClientNumber")%>
This may be poorly worded, so I think I can clarify if need be
Anyone looking for a solution, try the following:
In your controller:
1) Get the list:
var allCountries = countryRepository.GetAllCountries();
2) define a variable:
var items = new List<SelectListItem>();
3)loop each item:
foreach(var country in allCountries)
{
items.Add(new SelectListItem() {
Text = coutry.Name,
Value = Country.Id.ToString(),
// Put all sorts of business logic in here
Selected = country.Id == 13 ? true : false
});
}
model.Countries = items;
In your view:
#Html.ActionLink("StringToDisplay", "actionName", "controllerName", new SelectList(Model.Countries, "Value","Text"),"--Please Select--", new{#class="form-control"})
Not to mention Model should have a property with
public IEnumerable<Country> Countries {get; set;}