Different models for Get and Post - MVC

Question

As I understand from the question below it should be possible to use different models for Get and Post actions. But somehow I'm failing to achieve just that.

What am I missing?

Related question: Using two different Models in controller action for POST and GET

Model

public class GetModel
{
    public string FullName;
    public string Name;
    public int Id;
}

public class PostModel
{
    public string Name;
    public int Id;
}

Controller

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    public ActionResult Edit()
    {
        return View(new GetModel {Id = 12, Name = "Olson", FullName = "Peggy Olson"});
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Edit(PostModel postModel)
    {
        if(postModel.Name == null)
            throw new Exception("PostModel was not filled correct");
        return View();
    }
}

View

@model MvcApplication1.Models.GetModel
@using (Html.BeginForm()) {
    @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Id)
    @Html.EditorFor(x=>x.Name)
    <input type="submit" value="Save" />
}

You have an error in your view referencing class name... remove those "dsads" dummy characters. You're probably getting an error that model class is unknown. — Robert Koritnik, Oct 11 '11 at 13:03
What are you missing? You are missing to include the error you are getting in the question. — Aliostad, Oct 11 '11 at 13:08
Sorry for the missing error - I forgot to say that the purpose was to not throw an exception in Edit method — Rasmus, Oct 11 '11 at 13:40

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 11 '11 at 13:23

12

Your models aren't using proper accessors so model binding doesn't work. Change them to this and it should work:

public class GetModel
{
   public string FullName { get; set; }
   public string Name { get; set; }
   public int Id { get; set; }
}

public class PostModel
{
   public string Name { get; set; }
   public int Id { get; set; }
}

answered Oct 11 '11 at 13:23

Trax72

958
5
12

I thought those classes in question were missing them for simplicity reasons but were otherwise everyday properties. :) *Never trust example code to be much different from original* – Robert Koritnik Oct 11 '11 at 22:46

Robert Koritnik · Answer 2 · 2011-10-11T13:12:50.917

A bit of clarification

GET and POST controller actions can easily use whatever types they need to. Actually we're not talking about models here. Model is a set of classes/types that represent some application state/data. Hence application or data model.

What we're dealing here are:

view model types
action method parameter types

So your application model is still the same. And GetModel and PostModel are just two classes/types in this model. They're not model per-se.

Different types? Of course we can!

In your case you're using a view model type GetModel and then pass its data to PostModel action parameter. Since these two classes/types both have properties with same matching names, default model binder will be able to populate PostModel properties. If property names wouldn't be the same, you'd have to change the view to rename inputs to reflect POST action type property names.

You could as well have a view with GetModel type and then post action with several different prameters like:

public ActionResult Edit(Person person, IList<Address> addresses)
{
    ...
}

Or anything else. You'll just have to make sure that post data can be bound to these parameters and their type properties...

Different models for Get and Post - MVC

2 Answers2

A bit of clarification

Different types? Of course we can!