Question

I have a simple MVC3 application that I want to retrieve some configuration details from a service, allow the user to edit and save the configuration.

If any errors are detected during the saving process, these are to be returned and reported back to the user.

The problem is that the configuration containing the errors is failing to be called and the currently saved values are just being redisplayed.

Stepping through the code, when errors are detected, it should redirect to itself using the passed config object but it doesn’t and uses the method with no parameter.

Can anyone see where I’m going wrong?

Below are the two controller methods that are being called:

//
// GET: /Settings/Edit/
    public ActionResult Edit()
{
    SettingsViewModel config = null;

    // Set up a channel factory to use the webHTTPBinding
    using (WebChannelFactory<IChangeService> serviceChannel =
        new WebChannelFactory<IChangeService>(new Uri(baseServiceUrl)))
    {
        // Retrieve the current configuration from the service for editing
        IChangeService channel = serviceChannel.CreateChannel();
        config = channel.GetSysConfig();
    }

    ViewBag.Message = "Service Configuration";

    return View(config);
}

//
// POST: /Settings/Edit/
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Edit( SettingsViewModel config)
{
    try
    {
        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            // Set up a channel factory to use the webHTTPBinding
            using (WebChannelFactory<IChangeService> serviceChannel = new WebChannelFactory<IChangeService>(new Uri(baseServiceUrl)))
            {
                IChangeService channel = serviceChannel.CreateChannel();
                config = channel.SetSysConfig(config);

                // Check for any errors returned by the service
                if (config.ConfigErrors != null && config.ConfigErrors.Count > 0)
                {
                    // Force the redisplay of the page displaying the errors at the top
                    return RedirectToAction("Edit", config);
                }
            }
        }

        return RedirectToAction("Index", config);
    }
    catch
    {
        return View();
    }
}

Answer 1

return RedirectToAction("Index", config);

You cannot pass complex objects like this when redirecting. You will need to pass query string parameters one by one:

return RedirectToAction("Index", new {
    Prop1 = config.Prop1,
    Prop2 = config.Prop2,
    ...
});

Also I couldn’t see an Index action in your controller. Maybe it’s a typo. Another thing I notice is that you have an Edit GET action to which you are probably trying to redirect but this Edit action doesn’t take any parameters so it just seems weird. If you are trying to redirect to the POST Edit action, well, that’s obviously impossible since a redirect is always on GET by its very nature.