Question

I am trying to pass multiple values for a single field name to an ajax call:

<form>    
  <input type="hidden" name="fieldName" value="MyValue1">
  <input type="hidden" name="fieldName" value="MyValue2">
  <input type="hidden" name="fieldName" value="More data...">
  <input type="hidden" name="fieldName" value="More data...">
  <input type="hidden" name="fieldName" value="More data...">
  <input type="hidden" name="fieldName" value="More data...">
</form>

I cannot simply submit the form because the submission has to be done using ajax for reasons that are not relevant to this situation.

When I serialize this form data, I get the following:

formData: Object
  fieldName: Array[6]
    0: "MyValue1"
    1: "MyValue2"
    2: "More data..."
    3: "More data..."
    4: "More data..."
    5: "More data..."
    length: 6

So far, this looks good to me. Here is where I submit this to the server:

$.post("/MyHandler.axd", formData, function (data) {
       // etc.
});

On the server, code which I do not control does the following:

string[] values = request.Form.GetValues("fieldName");

At this point, values is null. However, if I do this:

string[] values = request.Form.GetValues("fieldName[]");

values has my array of length 6, with the correct data in it, etc.

I understand what is happening here, but I don’t know why or how I can get around it. Is there a way for me to pull out fieldName instead of fieldName[] without submitting the form?

Thanks.

EDIT: After trying @raymondralibi’s suggestions, I am now getting the following:

For the first suggestion (getSerializeArray($(this).closest('form'))), I get this:

formData: Object
  : undefined
  __proto__: Object

And for the second (getSerializeArray2($(this).closest('form'))), I get this:

formData: Array[1]
  0: Object
    : undefined
    __proto__: Object
  length: 1
  __proto__: Array[0]

Perhaps I am calling these incorrectly; any thoughts? Thanks again.

Answer 1

Well, I ended up getting this working, but I don’t like how I did it:

Before the code that executes that calls request.Form.GetValues("fieldName"), I do the following:

    var entriesTable = typeof(System.Collections.Specialized.NameObjectCollectionBase).GetField("_entriesTable", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance).GetValue(HttpContext.Current.Request.Form) as System.Collections.Hashtable;
    entriesTable.Add("fieldName", entriesTable["fieldName[]"]);

This copies the ArrayList to the correct key in the hash table, and everything works fine. Still, I would prefer to have this passed correctly from the client side, but for now this works.