Searching through a list on mvc razor pages

Question

I have the following Model:

 public class Photo
    {
        public string Id { get; set; }
        public List<string> Hashtag { get; set; }
        public string PhotoUrl { get; set; }
        public string SearchString { get; set; }
    }

My view looks like this:

@model PhotoSearch.Models.Photo[]
<div class="text-center">
    <p>Search.</p>
    <form>
        <p>
            Title: <input type="text" asp-for="SearchString" />
            <input type="submit" value="Filter" />
        </p>
    </form>
</div>


<h2>Photos</h2>
@{
    foreach (var photo in @Model)
    {
        <table>
            <tr>
                <th>URL</th>
                <th>Hashtags</th>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>@photo.PhotoUrl %</th>
                <th>@String.Join(", ", @photo.Hashtag.ToArray());</th>
            </tr>
        </table>
    }
}

I am getting a list of photos which are initially in Json format from an API, and then deserializing them into the above object:

using (HttpClient client = new HttpClient())
                {
                    using (HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync(baseUrl))
                    {
                        using (HttpContent content = response.Content)
                        {
        
                            string data = await content.ReadAsStringAsync();

                            if (data != null)
                            {
                                var photoList = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Photo[]>(data);

                                if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(searchString))
                                {
                                    var filteredList = photoList.Where(v => v.Hashtags.Contains(searchString));
                                    return View(filteredList);
                                }

                                return View(photoList);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }

I have the search form at the top as I want users to be able to enter in a list of hashtags, which will filter the results as if there's a SearchString populated, a different view will show with just the filtered photos. My issue is that SearchString is a property for Photo but not the Photo[] that's being used in the view. If I use a foreach the search box just appears several times. Is there a simpler way I can filter through the photos?

Answer 1

There is no need to use asp-for here. You can just set the input name as SearchString, because model binding is based on name.

<input type="text" id="SearchString" name="SearchString" />