We help IT Professionals succeed at work.

ASP.NET MVC: Model in strongly typed view not populating

mcorrente
mcorrente asked
I am brand spanking new to ASP.NET MVC and I'm working through a tutorial to get the basics. The tutorial is in C# and I'm converting it to VB to stay consistent with some related projects. I have to assume that I'm missing something in that conversion but can't figure out what it could be.

I have the following class:

Public Class GuestResponse
    Public Name As String
    Public Email As String
    Public Phone As String
    Public WillAttend As Boolean?
End Class

Open in new window


and a strongly-typed view related to that class:

@ModelType PartyInvites.GuestResponse

@Code
    Layout = Nothing
End Code

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>
<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
    <title>RsvpForm</title>
</head>
<body>
    @Using Html.BeginForm
        @<p>Your name: @Html.TextBoxFor(Of String)(Function(x) x.Name)</p>
        @<p>Your email: @Html.TextBoxFor(Of String)(Function(x) x.Email)</p>
        @<p>Your phone: @Html.TextBoxFor(Of String)(Function(x) x.Phone)</p>
        @<p>
            Will you attend?
            @Html.DropDownListFor(Of Boolean?)(Function(x) x.WillAttend,
                                                        New SelectListItem() {New SelectListItem With {.Text = "Yes, I'll be there", .Value = Boolean.TrueString},
                                                        New SelectListItem With {.Text = "No, I can't come", .Value = Boolean.FalseString}}, "Choose an option")
        </p>
        @<input type="submit" value="Submit RSVP" />
    End Using
</body>
</html>

Open in new window


My controller has a simple action method that takes that class and responds with another view:

<HttpPost>
Function RsvpForm(g As GuestResponse) As ViewResult
    'TODO: Email response to the party organizer
    Return View("Thanks", g)
End Function

Open in new window


Unfortunately, the form data from the post request isn't being populated in my GuestResponse class. If I insert a breakpoint in that action method, all the GuestResponse properties are empty. At the same time, the Request.Form values look as expected - they're just not filling in the GuestResponse object.

I'm sure it's something small I'm missing. Any help is appreciated.
Comment
Watch Question

View Solution Only

Commented:
I've figured it out.  Apparently, ASP.NET will only populate properties of an object - my object only had public fields.

So this:

    Public Class GuestResponse
        Public Name As String
        Public Email As String
        Public Phone As String
        Public WillAttend As Boolean?
    End Class

Open in new window


should be:

    Public Class GuestResponse
        Public Property Name As String
        Public Property Email As String
        Public Property Phone As String
        Public Property WillAttend As Boolean?
    End Class

Open in new window