Array to controllers RSS

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  arnig

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  Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 06:47 PM|LINK

  I have a page with many textboxes, named from textbox1 to textbox 10 for example. Is there a way to pass them to the controller as an array. I thought about serializing the form to a json string and passing the string to the controller, but is there a better way ? 

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  mcmcomasp

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  Re: Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 07:58 PM|LINK

  string[] myArray = new string[10];
  for(int i =0;i<10;++i){
     string txtBoxname = "txtbox" + i;
     TextBox tbTmp = (TextBox)this.FindControl(txtBoxname);
     if(tbTmp != null){
           myArray[i] = tbTmp.Text;
     }
   }

  that wil loop through 1 - 10 and create a text box name, then finds the textbox, gets the text and adds it to an array w/ 10 spots in it.

  hth,

  mcm

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  arnig

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  Re: Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 08:25 PM|LINK

  Well yes, but that is not what I was talking about.

  I'm talking about passing the values of those controls to the controller as an array. 

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  JeremyS

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  Re: Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 08:26 PM|LINK

  The above approach will not work with the MVC framework - it is specific to webforms.

  I'm currently using Castle.Components.Binder (http://www.castleproject.org) to do this. Hammett provides a sample project here which shows how to add support for the castle DataBinder by overriding InvokeActionMethod on the controller.

  In my view I can then have several textboxes:

  <input type="text" name="textboxes[1]" value="1" />
  <input type="text" name="textboxes[2]" value="2" />
  <input type="text" name="textboxes[3]" value="3" />
  

  ... and then in the controller I can have:

  [ControllerAction]
  public void Update([FormBinder] string[] textboxes) { }
  

  ... and the textboxes array will automatically be populated from the form data.

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  abombss

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  Re: Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 08:33 PM|LINK

  Have a look at the MVC Contrib project there is a patch for deserializing arrays.  Here is one of the tests.  assuming you have a bunch of textboxes named "id[0]" ..."id[10]" this would bring them back into a int array.

   

  + [Test]
  + public void DeserializePrimitiveArray()
  + {
  + NameValueCollection collection = new NameValueCollection();
  + collection["ids[0]"] = "10";
  + collection["ids[1]"] = "20";
  +
  + NameValueDeserializer nvd = new NameValueDeserializer();
  +
  + int[] array = (int[])nvd.Deserialize(collection, "ids", typeof(int[]));
  +
  + Assert.IsNotNull(array);
  + Assert.AreEqual(2, array.Length);
  + Assert.AreEqual(10, array[0]);
  + Assert.AreEqual(20, array[1]);
  + }

    

  MVC binding

  Adam Tybor -- abombss.com
  • Marked as answer by arnig on Dec 19, 2007 09:34 PM
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  arnig

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  60 Posts

  Re: Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 09:34 PM|LINK

   Thanks a lot, that code from mvccontrib did the trick, at least until something better comes along, will this maybe be included in the mvc.net in the future ?
  

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  robconery

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  Re: Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 09:43 PM|LINK

  In HTML if you name controls the same, the browser will send them via POST as a string-delimited set. So

  <input name ="mybox" value="Foo" /><input name="mybox" value="Bar" /> will be sent along in the header as "Foo,Bar". To use these, you can:

  string myInput=Request.Form["mybox"];

  string[] inputs=myInput.Split(new char[]{','},StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

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  nagir

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  Re: Array to controllers

  Dec 19, 2007 11:05 PM|LINK

  Hi Rob, 

  <input name ="mybox" value="FooA,FooB" /><input name="mybox" value="Bar" />
  string myInput=Request.Form["mybox"];
  string[] inputs=myInput.Split(new char[]{','},StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

  What will be in inputs? 

  Regards,
  Dmitriy.
  

  Software CAN be perfect