ASP.NET MVC Model Binding

Question

If i have a Controller Action that may recieve both HTTP GET and HTTP POST from a number of different sources with each source sending different data e.g.

1. Source1 performs a form POST with two form items Item1 and Item2
2. Source2 performs a GET where the data is contained in the query string (?ItemX=2&ItemY=3)

Is it possible to have a controller action that will cater for all these cases and perform binding automatically e.g. public ActionResult Test(Dictionary data) { // Do work ... return View(); }

Is this possible with a custom binder or some other way? Dont want to work directly with HttpContext.Request if possible

Answer 1

The usual pattern is to have two controller methods One controller method handles the GET, the other controller method handles the POST:

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ActionResult MyControllerMethod(string itemX, string itemY)
{
}

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult MyControllerMethod(MyViewDataObject data)
{
}

If you need help binding lists, collections or dictionaries you can find it here.

Answer 2

This solution works, not best for unit testing

     public object BindModel(
                    ControllerContext controllerContext, 
                    ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
                {  
                    TestIBE.Models.IBERequest _IBERequest;
                    HttpContextBase _httpContext;
                    Dictionary<string, string> _requestData;


                    _httpContext = controllerContext.HttpContext;
                    _requestData = this.CreateRequestData(_httpContext.Request);

                    _IBERequest = new TestIBE.Models.IBERequest(
                        _httpContext.Session.SessionID,
                        _httpContext.Request.UserHostAddress,
                        _httpContext.Request.UserAgent,
                        _httpContext.Request.Url,
                        _requestData);

                    return _IBERequest;
                }


                private Dictionary<string, string> CreateRequestData(
                    HttpRequestBase subject)
                {
                    Dictionary<string, string> _result;


                    _result = new Dictionary<string, string>();
                    subject.Form.AllKeys.ForEach(key => _result.Add(key, subject.Form[key]));
                    subject.QueryString.AllKeys.ForEach(key => { if (!_result.ContainsKey(key)) { _result.Add(key, subject.QueryString[key]); } });

                    return _result;
                }


public class IBEController : Controller
    {
        public ActionResult Landing(
            [ModelBinder(typeof(TestIBE.Helpers.Binders.IBEModelBinder))] TestIBE.Models.IBERequest IBERequest)
        {
            // TODO
            return View();
        }
    }