post and get with same method signature

Question

In my controller I have two actions called "Friends". The one that executes depends on whether or not it's a "get" versus a "post".

So my code snippets look something like this:

// Get:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ActionResult Friends()
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

// Post:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Friends()
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

However, this does not compile since I have two methods with the same signature (Friends). How do I go about creating this? Do I need to create just one action but differentiate between a "get" and "post" inside of it? If so, how do I do that?

Answer 1

Rename the second method to something else like "Friends_Post" and then you can add [ActionName("Friends")] attribute to the second one. So the requests to the Friend action with POST as request type, will be handled by that action.

// Get:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ActionResult Friends()
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

// Post:
[ActionName("Friends")]
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Friends_Post()
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

Answer 2

not entirely sure if it is the correct way, but i would use a meaningless parameter to differentiate the sigs. like:

// Get:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ActionResult Friends(bool isGet)
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

// Post:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Friends()
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

I know it's ugly and hackish, but it works.

Answer 3

Marking cagdas' response as the answer since it answered my question. However, since I don't like using the ActionName attribute in my project I use a different solution. I simply added the FormCollection to the "post" action (which ends up changing the method signature)

// Get:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Get)]
public ActionResult Friends()
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

// Post:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Friends(FormCollection form)
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

Answer 4

add to the Post method the params to want to receive in the post. maybe like this:

// Post:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Friends(string friendName, string otherField)
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

..or if you have a complex type, like this:

// Post:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Friends(Friend friend)
{
    // do some stuff
    return View();
}

Edit: It would be preferable to use a more typed-approach to receiving the posted items, like above.

Answer 5

If you truly only want one routine to handle both verbs, try this:

[AcceptVerbs(new string[] { "Get", "Post" })]
public ActionResult ActionName(string param1, ...)
{
//Fun stuff goes here.
}

One potential caveat: I'm using MVC release 2. Not sure if this was supported in MVC 1. The Intellisense documentation for AcceptVerbs should let you know.