Question

I have a database with a table called Patient. In my view I have:

<h2>Search by Patient_Name</h2>

@using (@Html.BeginForm("DetailsbyName", "Patient"))
{    
@Html.Label("First Name")
@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.First_Name)
<br />
@Html.Label("Last Name")
@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Last_Name)

<input type="submit", value="Submit"/>}

In my controller is the following method:

public ActionResult DetailsbyName(Patient _patient)
        {
            string Fname = _patient.First_Name;
            string Lname = _patient.Last_Name;

            try
            {
            Patient patient = db.Patients.Single(p => p.First_Name == Fname);
            patient = db.Patients.Single(p => p.Last_Name == Lname);

                return View(patient);
            }
            catch
            {
                return RedirectToAction("About", "Home");
            }
        }

When a user enters a first or last name that occurs more than once in the Database table, the db.Patients.Singlethrows an exception. What might I use other than .Single to handle this?

For instance a user enters First Name: John
Last Name: Smith
If the DB has more than once “John” I currently get an exception. Or if the DB has more than one “Smith” as a last name I get an exception.

Thanks.

Got it working with this:

List<Patient> patientList = db.Patients.Where(p => p.Last_Name == Lname || p.First_Name == Fname).ToList(); 

            return View(patientList);

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

I think the decision of what to do when multiple records are returned is up to you. You could have your View’s model be a List and display all of them in your view.

You would then have:

List<Patient> patientList = db.Patients.Where(p => p.Last_Name = LName || p.First_Name = FName).ToList();