Question

Phil Haack has an article that describes how to set things up so the default model binder will bind to a collection on a post back:

http://haacked.com/archive/2008/10/23/model-binding-to-a-list.aspx

The problem I am having is I am not just trying to send a collection back to the Controller action, but a ViewModel with a collection.

I have a class that basically looks like this:

public class MyViewModel
{
public int IncidentNumber { get; set; }
public string StoreId { get; set; }
public string RepId { get; set; }
public string OrderStatus { get; set; }
public CustomerViewModel Customer { get; set;
//... other properties and SelectLists for binding

public IEnumerable<OrderItemViewModel> OrderItemViewModels { get; set; }

I can actually get the CustomerViewModel data back on a postback, but the list of OrderItemViewModels is empty. How do I get those back? Phil’s article isn’t helping there.

Answer 1

I had a similar problem here MVC binding to model with list property ignores other properties which was solved by using the following code within the view

<div class="editor-field">
@for (int i = 0; i < Model.MyCollection.Count(); i++)
{
    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.MyCollection[i].Id)
    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.MyCollection[i].ParentId)
    @Html.HiddenFor(m => m.MyCollection[i].Name)
    @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.MyCollection[i].Value)
}
</div>