How do I send deep JSON objects to an Action?

Question

In my web app I have a dynamically generated form that I use to create a JSON object to pitch back to an Action. As seen here:

    function getConfigItemWithValidators() {
        log.info("getConfigItemWithValidators()");
        var oConfigItem = { 
            "Name": $("#txtName").html(),
            "InputFileCellIndex": $("#inpFieldIndex").val(), 
            "Validators": new Array() };

        for (var i = 0; true; i++) {
            var oHiddenValidatorName = $("[name=hidVld"+i+"]");
            var oHiddenValidatorVal  = $("[name=txtVld"+i+"]");
            if ($("[name=hidVld" + i + "]").length > 0) {
                var oValidator = {
                    "ValidationType": oHiddenValidatorName.val(), 
                    "ValidationValue": oHiddenValidatorVal.val() };
                oConfigItem.Validators.push(oValidator);
            }
            else
                break;
        }
        return oConfigItem
    }

    function saveConfigItemChanges() {
        log.info("saveConfigItemChanges()");
        var oConfigItem = getConfigItemWithValidators();
        $("#divRulesContainer").hide("normal");
        $.getJSON("PutValidationRules", oConfigItem, 
                   saveConfigItemChangesCallback);
    }

In my action, while debugging, I notice that model.Validators is empty:

    [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
    public JsonResult PutValidationRules(ConfigItem model)
    {
        // model.Validators is empty
        return Json(true);
    }

Here is the code to ConfigItem:

public class ConfigItem
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int InputFileCellIndex { get; set; }

    private IList<Validator> _validators = new List<Validator>();
    public IList<Validator> Validators
    {
        get
        {
            return _validators;
        }
    }

    public void AddValidator(Validator aValidator)
    {
        aValidator.ConfigItem = this;
        _validators.Add(aValidator);
    }
}

Is there something I need to do to get ConfigItem.Validators to get built for my JSON requests?

Answer 1

It is empty because default binder does not work for arrays very well. You will need to implement a custombinder. You can see here an example of custombinders