Question

I have a controller with a postback action:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult test(string x) { ... }

and I wanted to add a GET action with the same signature:

public ActionResult test(string y) { ... }

but the compiler pukes:

Type 'TestController' already defines a member called 'test' with 
the same parameter types

so I thought to change the signature:

public ActionResult test(RouteValueDictionary args) { ... }

and call it like this:

@{
    RouteValueDictionary args = new RouteValueDictionary(
        new { y = "test" }
    );
}
@Html.Action("test", "TestController", args)

but the controller receives args as null. clearly I don’t get how this is supposed to work. I know I could just rename the action but I’d like to know how to declare it such that my dictionary comes across.

TIA – e

Answer 1

You can keep the signature and just change the name of the method, but use the same action name by specifying the ActionNameAttribute.

For example

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult Foo(FooModel model)
{
   // do stuff
}

[HttpPost]
[ActionName("Foo")]
public ActionResult FooPost(FooModel model)
{
   // do stuff
}

The method names are different, but the MVC action is the same for both: “Foo”.