Question

I try to bind an OrderedDictionary to a view but when the post method gets invoked the Dictionary is always empty.

Here is my code:

    [HttpGet]
    public ViewResult Edit(string username, string password)
    {
        Xml test = new Xml(@"c:\Users\pc\Desktop\xml - Copy.xml");
        XmlNode userNode = test.GetUserNodeByUsernameAndPassword(username, password);
        User user = new User();
        user.BindData(userNode);
        return View(user.user);
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public ViewResult Edit(OrderedDictionary attributes)
    {
        return View(attributes);
    }

And here is the view:

@using (Html.BeginForm("Edit", "Users")) {
@Html.ValidationSummary(true)

<fieldset>
    <legend>User</legend>

    <p>
        <input type="submit" value="Save" />
    </p>

    @{int counter = 0;}
    @{string name = "";}
    @foreach (DictionaryEntry attribute in Model)
    {
        { name = "[" + counter + "].key"; }
        <input type="hidden" name=@name value=@attribute.Key />
        @attribute.Key @Html.TextBoxFor(m => attribute.Value)
        counter++;
        <br />
    }
</fieldset>
}

And the result Html looks like this is:

<input type="hidden" value="Username" name="[0].key">
  Username
  <input id="attribute_Value" type="text" value="Anamana" name="attribute.Value">

So the content of the OrderedDictionary appears fine in the view but when I make a post back the binding isn’t working and the directory remains empty.

Answer 1

Meantime I have found the solution.

I can pass an OrderedDictionary to the view page.
It process it by the following Razor code:

    @model System.Collections.Specialized.OrderedDictionary
    (...)
    @{int counter = 0;}
    @{string name = "";}
    @foreach (DictionaryEntry attribute in Model)
    {
        { name = "[" + counter + "].key"; }
        @Html.Hidden(name, attribute.Key)
        {name = "[" + counter + "].value";}
        @attribute.Key @Html.TextBox(name, attribute.Value)
        counter++;
        <br />
    }

The result HTML‘s structure fits to the samples which is found in a book, the values from the dictionary appears fine on the page.

After POST was invoked the POST handler function gets the modified values in a Dictionary.

    [HttpPost]
    public ViewResult Edit(Dictionary<string, string> attributes)
    {}

I don’t know why but I can’t use OrderedDictionary here.