Question

I have something like this on my view:

<input type="checkbox" value="1" name="services-for" />
<input type="checkbox" value="2" name="services-for" />
<input type="checkbox" value="3" name="services-for" />

Let’s say the user has checked the 1st and 3rd.

My controller function for the POST action looks like this:

    public ActionResult SaveProfile()

and not SaveProfile(string name, List<int> servicesFor) and whatnot due to the extreme number of field inputs (over a 100) and the fact that many of them have values encoded in their names (for example, name=”item-542146″).

So I am using HttpContext.Current.Request.Form to access the form values. However, HttpContext.Current.Request.Form["services-for"] returns null while it works fine for normal text inputs, ie, not multi-selects.

What can I do?

Answer 1

You are better off using a FormCollection parameter as follows rather than retrieving values from HttpContext.Current.Request as this still allows you to easily test your action methods:

public ActionResult SaveProfile(FormCollection form)
{
    var servicesFor = (form["services-for"] ?? "")
        .Split(',')
        .Select(int.Parse);

    // ...
}

Note that form["services-for"] may return null if there are no checked input items present in the form that was POSTed.