Question

This is a very basic question, I think I ask very tough questions on here and they never get answered… Let me break it down to its simplest possible components and work up from there…
I have a view which requires user information to be entered in… on submit, this view calls a controller, which will give me the data that I need to put back on to this SAME view… How do I get get that data back onto my view without calling the same view again at the end of the execution of the controller…?

Here is what I have so far (Jquery function)…

     $(function () {
    $("#DemoGraphSubmit").click(function (e) {
        e.preventDefault();
        var data = [];
        $.getJSON("/PatientACO.aspx/SearchByDemographic", null, function (data) {
            data = $.map(data, function (item, a) {
                return "<option value=" + item.Value + ">" + item.Text + "</option>";
            });
            $("#PatientListToAdd").html(data.join(""));
        });
    });
});

submit button and select list that I want populated

    <div >
    <select id="PatientListToAdd">Add Patient</select>
    </div>

Answer 1

While my example doesn’t exactly mimic your design (you might be using a page method or some questionable routing), but as long as /PatientACO.aspx/SearchByDemographic is returning JSON, you should be able to apply this code. Populate the List<ListItem> collection with your data as needed and return JSON.

I added an action called SearchByDemographic, and you will see in my jQuery further down that I use it instead of your URL. However, it still accepts POST requests and returns JSON.

[HttpPost]
public JsonResult SearchByDemographic()
{
    List<ListItem> list = new List<ListItem>() {
        new ListItem() { Value = "1", Text = "Patient 1" },
        new ListItem() { Value = "2", Text = "Patient 2" },
        new ListItem() { Value = "3", Text = "Patient 3" }
    };

    return this.Json(list);
}

Then, my jQuery is slightly modified to use $.ajax which is just longhand for $.getJSON and it allows a few more options.

$('#DemoGraphSubmit').click(function (e) {
    e.preventDefault();

    $.ajax({
        url: 'SearchByDemographic',
        type: 'POST',
        success: function (data) {
            $.each(data, function (i, optionData) {
                var option = new Option(optionData.Text, optionData.Value);
                $('#PatientListToAdd').append(
                    $('<option></option>').val(optionData.Value).html(optionData.Text)
                );
            });
        }
    });
});