Question

I am trying to submit this with Ajax to a MVC3 controller:

    var params = {
        'productId': productId,
        'list': []
    };

    $.each($('.specificationId'), function () {
        var specId = $(this).attr('id').replace('specification_', '');

        var specification = {
            specificationId: specId,
            articleId: $('#articleid_' + specId).attr('value'),
            price: $('#price_' + specId).attr('value'),
            stock: $('#stock_' + specId).attr('value'),
            stockCount: $('#stockcount_' + specId).attr('value'),
            weight: $('#weight_' + specId).attr('value'),
            visible: $('#visible_' + specId).attr('checked')
        };

        params.list.add(specification);
    });

    console.log(params);
    //all values are parsed fine here, shows an array with json objects

    $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: "/Admin/Product/Save/",
        data: params,
        success: function () { alert('done'); }
    });

Now this has to go to the controller like so:

    [HttpPost]
    public Boolean Save(Int32 productId, Object[] specifications)
    {

        return true;
    }

But Object[] does not work, returns null, I tried all sorts of stuff like lists of a model etc, but it will stay null.

How to tackle this?

Answer 1

ASP.NET MVC 3 includes built-in JSON model binding.

So create simple POCOs which matches the JSON your attempting to submit:

public class ProductJsonModel
{
   public int ProductId { get; set; }
   public ProductSpecificationJsonModel[] @List { get; set; }
}

public class ProductSpecificationJsonModel
{
   public int SpecificationId { get; set; }
   public int ArticleId { get; set; }
   public double Price { get; set; }
   public int Stock { get; set; }
   public int StockCount { get; set; }
   public int Weight { get; set; }
   public bool Visible { get; set; }
}

Then accept that in your action:

[HttpPost]
public Boolean Save(ProductJsonModel model)

As long as the property names in the JSON object match the property names in the POCO’s, MVC will bind for you.

Also – you should serialise the JSON using .stringify or something similar, and set the contentType of the $.ajax object accordingly.