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Asked: 2026-06-11T12:24:27+00:00

I’m trying to figure out the model binding in MVC3. Look at this example.

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I’m trying to figure out the model binding in MVC3. Look at this example.

Here’s the controller code: 

public ActionResult Index()
    {
        Person person = new Person{ Name = "Test" };

        return View(person);
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public string Edit(Person personModel)
    {
        return string.Format("From server: {0}", personModel.Name);
    }

And here’s the html/javascript bit: 

@model MCV3.Test.Models.Person
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    $(document).ready(function (){

        var model = @Html.Raw(Json.Encode(Model));

        $.ajax({
            url : "/Person/Edit", 
            type: "Post",
            datatype: "json",
            data :  model, 
            success: function (data) {                   
                $("#result").text(data);                    
            }
        });

    });
</script>
</head>
<body>
    <label id="result"></label>
</body>
</html>

The code above works, but if I change data setting of the ajax call to this:

$.ajax({
            url : "/Person/Edit", 
            type: "Post",
            datatype: "json",
             data : {personModel : model},
            success: function (data) {                   
                $("#result").text(data);                    
            }
        });

it doesn’t work any more: the model is of the correct type, but the name property is null.

In the example that works, the post parameters are: 

Name    Test

Name=Test

But in the example that doesn’t work, they are: 

personModel[Name]   Test

personModel%5BName%5D=Test

It seems like MVC can’t serialize the request if it looks like this: personModel[Name] Test

Is there any way to solve this without writing a custom binder?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    When MVC binding tries to create and populate a Person object to pass to your Edit action, it tries to find values for all the settable properties on the Person object; in this case the Name property. It therefore looks in the form data, query string data (etc.) for a name value pair with the key ‘Name’. Your working example has one, your non-working example doesn’t.

    If you want to post data in this format you could create a custom ValueProvider which parses the data and returns values based on what it finds.

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