ASP.NET Web Form parameters in URL

Question

I have an ASP.NET page that contain a form that search the page.

Is there any solution so that I can have the search text in the URL?

I want to give the posibility to my clients to copy/paste the search results URL.

Answer 1

There might be other better/cleaner/proper ways of doing it, like changing form's action, or changing button's PostBackUrl, but this is what I would do.

1. Redirect to self with search term appended to query string.
2. On page load, if query string is not empty, do search.

.aspx:

<asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text="Search Term:&nbsp;"></asp:Label>
<asp:TextBox ID="txtSearchTerm" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<asp:Button ID="btnSearch" runat="server" Text="Search" 
    onclick="btnSearch_Click" />

.cs:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (Page.IsPostBack)
        return;

    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(Request.QueryString["SearchTerm"]))
    {
        string searchTerm = Request.QueryString["SearchTerm"];
        txtSearchTerm.Text = searchTerm;
        DoSearch(searchTerm);
    }
}
protected void btnSearch_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(txtSearchTerm.Text.Trim()))
    {
        Response.Redirect("~/Search.aspx?SearchTerm=" + txtSearchTerm.Text.Trim());
    }
}

private void DoSearch(string searchTerm)
{
    //search logic here
    Response.Write("Search result: " + searchTerm);
}

Answer 2

After more research abut this topic I think that the javascript solution is the best:

You can access the ACTION attribute of the form using JavaScript.

<form id="myForm" action="Search.aspx" onsubmit="return setAction();">
    <input id="textbox" />
    <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

<script type="text/javascript">

function setAction()
{
    var myForm = document.getElementById( "myForm" );
    var myText = document.getElementById( "textbox" );

    if (myForm && myForm.action && myText && myText.value != null )
    {
       myForm.action = "Search.aspx?q=" + myText.value;
    }
    return true;
}

</script>

Personally I am not a big fan of JavaScript ... but this does not add an extra request to the server. If you think that this has any drawbacks please let me know.

Answer 3

You can also use jQuery to do the trick, like this:

$(function(){

$('input[type="submit"]').click(function(e){
       e.preventDefault();
       var searchResult = "Search.aspx?q=" + $('input#textbox').val();
       $('form#myForm').attr('action',searchResult);
    });
});