I have a complex View Model that has built complex named html elements. How do I build a matching post model?

Question

I have a lot of data that needs to be passed from a controller to a view and I am trying to use strongly typed View Models where possible.

Take an example where you have a database of loads of people - We want to edit a person whilst also presenting a list of everyone with the same surname.

public class person
{ 
  public string ID { get; set; }
  public string FirstName { get; set; }
  public string LastName { get; set; }
}

public class testviewmodel
{
 public List<person> people { get; set; }
 public person newperson { get; set; }
}

I can't use testviewmodel as the model for the post because there is a lot more going on in the form/data. I have managed to build a model that contains nearly all the form data, other than the ones from the View Model.

I generate some items in the form via:

<input asp-for="newperson.Firstname" class="form-control"/>

This in return generates:

<input class="form-control" disabled type="text" id="newperson_Firstname" name="newperson_Firstname" value="xxxx" />

However, I have tried adding newperson_Firstnameto my model alongside quite a few other combinations, and, I am just not able to see the data.

Can anyone please assist and let me know what I am doing wrong - or, should I just be adjusting the view model to be more fit for purpose?

...Lastly, is there any equivalent of var_dump($_REQUEST);? At the moment, I'm adding breakpoints and trying to open up different items within Locals, but, it's trial and error and taking ages... I'm just trying to find where the form is!

Answer 1

You shouldn't need to dig around in the Request object. If you pass an instance of your ViewModel to your post action, model binding will take care of populating the Person property automatically:

[HttpPost]
public IActionResult Edit(TestviewModel model)
{
    var person = model.Person; // add a breakpoint here, should represent the posted values
}