Question

I have a view with the following code:

@using (Html.BeginForm("GenerateQrCode", "QrCodeGenerator", FormMethod.Post ))
{
    <input type="submit" value="Generate" />
}

It’s just a submit button, which calls the code in my controller:

    public void GenerateQrCode()
    {

    }

Is it possible for a method in my controller to return a value from the form, but without going to a different page? Because I notice that currently, on pressing the form button it tries to navigate to a non-existing ‘GenerateQrCode’ page (the same name as the controller method).

UPDATE:

Something I’ve tried is making the controller method return an ActionResult, and return a ‘RedirectToAction’, and simply calling the same view. However, I also had code in this method ‘ViewBag.Message = “myMessage”; and then in my view I had the code ‘@ViewBag.Message’, so I hoped that the view would update with the ViewBag message property, but it doesn’t appear so.

Answer 1

The simplest method of doing this was simply to use the RedirectToAction method, specifying the name of the controller in the parameters. I also used the TempData variable to pass the results (in this case just a string value) back to the view, and into a ViewBag variable.

    public ActionResult QrCodeGenerator()
    {
        ViewBag.Message = TempData["Message"];
        return View();
    }

    public ActionResult GenerateQrCode()
    {
        TempData["Message"] = "myMessage";
        return RedirectToAction("QrCodeGenerator");
    }