ASP.NET MVC View Model not binding on HTTP Post with DropDownList

Question

I am having an issue that when I post to a controller I lose binding and everything in my view model is NULL. Here is the code I am using:

View:

@model ArticleCategoryVm

@using (@Html.BeginForm())
{
    @Html.HiddenFor(model => model.LanguageIdDisplayed)

    <label>Name: <span class="label label-important">Required</span></label>
    @Html.HmlValidationFor(model => model.CategoryName)
    @Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.CategoryName, new { maxlength = "255", placeholder = "Category Name", @class = "input-xlarge-fluid" })                  
    <span class="help-block">The is the name of the category and how it appears on the site.</span>

    <label>Language: <span class="label label-important">Required</span></label>
    @Html.HmlValidationFor(model => model.LanguageId)
    @Html.DropDownList("LanguageId", new SelectList(@Model.Languages, "Value", "Text"), "Select language", new { @class="input-xlarge-fluid" })
    <span class="help-block">This will be the language that the category is set too.</span>

    <label>Parent:</label>
    @Html.HmlValidationFor(model => model.CategoryParentId)
    @Html.DropDownList("CategoryParentId", new SelectList(@Model.CategoryParents, "Value", "Text"), new { @class = "input-xlarge-fluid" })
    <span class="help-block">Allows you to group the category under another existing category.</span>

    <label>Moderator Email: <span class="label label-important">Required</span></label>
    @Html.HmlValidationFor(model => model.ModeratorEmail)
    @Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.ModeratorEmail, new { maxlength = "255", placeholder = "Email Address", @class = "input-xlarge-fluid" })
    <span class="help-block">This is the moderator email for articles in this category.</span>

    <button type="submit" class="btn btn-duadua btn-small"><i class="icon-ok-3"></i> Add New Category</button>                      
}

ViewModel:

public class ArticleCategoryVm : BaseLayoutVm
{
    public int LanguageIdDisplayed;
    public List<ArticleCategoryItemVm> ArticleCategoryItemVms { get; set; }

    // Add Category Fields
    [Required]
    public string CategoryName;

    [EmailAttribute]
    [Required]
    public string ModeratorEmail;

    [Required]
    public int LanguageId;

    public int CategoryParentId;

    public List<SelectListItem> Languages { get; set; }
    public List<SelectListItem> CategoryParents { get; set; }
}

Controller:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Categories(ArticleCategoryVm vm)
{
   // Code here
   if (ModelState.IsValid)
   {
   }

   ReDrawDropDowns(vm);
   return View(vm)
}

Why is everything in my viewmodel NULL? I can see in using Chromes tools that in the post the values are being posted for the strings and ints... As a work around I have just done the following to get the code working:

Workaround Controller:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Categories(int LanguageIdDisplayed, string CategoryName, string ModeratorEmail, int LanguageId, int CategoryParentId)
{
    var vm = new ArticleCategoryVm()
    {
        CategoryName = CategoryName,
        LanguageIdDisplayed = LanguageIdDisplayed,
        ModeratorEmail = ModeratorEmail,
        LanguageId = LanguageId,
        CategoryParentId = CategoryParentId
    };

    if (ModelState.IsValid)
    {
    }

    ReDrawDropDowns(vm);
    return View(vm)
}

Thanks

Granicus

Answer 1

Looks like it might be because of a difference between properties and variables as noted in this question. Add { get; set; } to all variables that you want to bind. As noted in that question I think this is because of the way the default model binder uses reflection.

I have found it useful in the past to actually grab the ASP.NET MVC source code so that I can debug it and see what is going on.

Private

This was driving me NUTS. Sometimes you don't see what's right in front of your eyes. – Suanne

This fix worked perfectly. It was driving me nuts too, since I clearly saw the data posted while monitoring the request. – Dinahdinan

Answer 2

There is another reason for view model is NULL :

• The name of model in action parameter be the same as one of view model's properties

---

Example:

Model:

public class NewBookPageView{
  int blabla {get;set;}
  Book NewBook {get;set;} //NewBook is the same as newBook in action parameter
}

controller:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult AddNewBook(NewBookPageView newBook)//newBook is the same as NewBook in view
{
   int temp = newBook.blabla;
   temp++;
   //...
}

---

Tip: Here same name means case insensitive (newBook is same as NewBook)

Tip: Faced in MVC3 and MVC4.

Strander

I just got caught out by this one... seems to be a lot of hidden reserved words / rules with action parameter names... a few days ago I wanted to have a parameter called 'action' which broke my routing! Somewhere under the hood I assume it’s making an anonymous object like the route values anonymous object that turns these parameters into properties on that object so if you use a name like ‘controller’, ‘action’ etc. it screws things up. – Sellers

Answer 3

To model binding in View you should use strongly-typed-html-helpers

replace

@Html.DropDownList("CategoryParentId", new SelectList(@Model.CategoryParents, "Value", "Text"), new { @class = "input-xlarge-fluid" })

to:

@Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.CategoryParentId, new SelectList(@Model.CategoryParents, "Value", "Text"), new { @class = "input-xlarge-fluid" })

Erythroblast

Thank you very much. That worked... I've been struggling for 3 hours. :-( – Finegrain