Question

So, I’m working on a new project using ASP.NET MVC. Honestly I don’t have pretty much experience with it (or any web development) before so maybe its a simple question.

I have a partial view that’s a search box that is shared between various of the web views. The view has a drop down list and a text box. I need that once the user post the form (using the search button) that values arrive to the index action of the search controller as a SearchFilterModel object.

Now, the form is calling the index action on the Search controller. That’s working (see attached code). But the thing is, the id param (that must be a SearchFilterModel) of the index method doesn’t arrive (it’s null).

I don’t know how to pass the object from the form to the controller. ¿What I’m doing wrong?

The thing is if I replace new { id = search } with new { id = "something" } (changing the type of the sent parameter, then an string arrives (it works) or if I write new { id = 1 } then an int arrives. I guess there’s something related with the thing that SearchFilterModel isn’t a native type but a complex one.

Any idea?

@using Hermes.Models.Helpers

@{
    var search = CacheHelper.Instance.SearchFilter;
    using (Html.BeginForm("Index", "Search", new { id = search  }, FormMethod.Post))
    {
        @Html.ValidationSummary(true, "No se creó la cuenta. Corrija los errores e inténtelo de nuevo.")
        <div>
            <fieldset>
                <legend>Búsqueda por tipo de producto</legend>

                <div class="editor-label">
                    @Html.LabelFor(s => search.SearchFilter)
                    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
                    @Html.DropDownListFor(s => search.SelectedSearchFilter, new SelectList(search.SearchFilter))
                    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
                    @Html.LabelFor(s => search.SearchQuery)
                    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
                    @Html.TextBoxFor(s => search.SearchQuery)
                    @Html.ValidationMessageFor(s => search.SearchQuery)
                    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
                    <input type="submit" value="Buscar" />
                </div>
            </fieldset>
        </div>
    }
}

Search Controller’s Index Action

[HttpPost]
        public ActionResult Index(SearchFilterModel id)
        {
            var x = CacheHelper.Instance.SearchFilter;

            ViewBag.Filter = id.SelectedSearchFilter;
            ViewBag.msg = String.Format("Se están buscando {0}, con el filtro {1}", id.SelectedSearchFilter, id.SearchQuery);
            ViewBag.ResultsCount = 0;

            return View();
        }

SearchFilterModel

public class SearchFilterModel
{
    [Required]
    [DataType(DataType.Text)]
    [Display(Name = "¿Qué características?")]
    public string SearchQuery { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [DataType(DataType.Text )]
    [Display(Name = "¿Qué buscar?")]
    public List<String> SearchFilter { get; set; }

    [Required]
    [DataType(DataType.Text)]
    [Display(Name = "¿Qué buscar?")]
    public string SelectedSearchFilter { get; set; }
}

Answer 1

None of the posted answers work so finally the solution was:

In the “Home” controller (its view renders the “Search” partial view) I declare a new instance of the SearchViewModel, pass it to the “Home” view (via ViewBag) recover it on the “Home” view and the pass it to the “Search” partial view via Render method:

SearchFilterModel searchFilter = ViewBag.SearchFilter;
@Html.Partial("SearchProduct", searchFilter)

Now, on the “Search” view, just declare the Begin form as usual and now it works perfectly. It seems (to me) that the problem is related with the lifetime of the object (on my question and my original attempt I was trying to declaring it just before the form and it seems to me that it isn’t possible to do that). Now, it works great but I’m concern about the performance implications on doing it this way. Any suggest’ll be greatly appreciated.