PageData fails to pass data in WebMatrix

Question

I am building a website with WebMatrix. I would like users to enter their name in the main page and after redirection their name will be shown in the results of another form. But my code is not working.

This is a snippet of the main page:

@{
    if (IsPost) {
        PageData["fullname"] = String.Format("{0} {1}", Request.Form["mainForename"], Request.Form["mainSurname"]);
        PageData["redir"] = Request.Form["goTo"];
    }
}

<form name="mainForm" id="mainForm" method="post" action="foo.cshtml" onsubmit="return mainValid(this);">
    <h2>Please enter your name:</h2>
    <label for="mainForename" class="label">Forename:</label>
    <input type="text" name="mainForename" id="mainForename">
    <label for="mainSurname" class="label">Surname:</label>
    <input type="text" name="mainSurname" id="mainSurname">
    <input type="submit" name="goTo" value="Go to Form 1">
    <input type="submit" name="goTo" value="Go to Form 2">
</form>

This is a snippet of the page that the main page directs to:

@{
    if (IsPost) {
        var display = PageData["fullname"];
    }
}

<form name="form1" id="form1" method="post" onsubmit="return Valid(this);">
    <!-- some HTML code -->
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Get results">
    <p>@Html.Raw(display)</p>
</form>

But whatever value I have submitted in the mainForm, PageData["fullname"] and PageData["redir"] seem to have no values. What is the problem?

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I think PageData is only useful when combining subpages into a single page.

Instead, try the Session object where you are using PageData. Session will be available for all that user's pages.

So where you have PageData["fullname"] use Session["fullname"]

For more details, see http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/article/192/transferring-data-between-asp-net-web-pages