Model Binding not working

Question

I have the following POCO classes:

public class Location
    {
        public int LocationId { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public string Street { get; set; }
        public string City { get; set; }
        public string State { get; set; }
        public string ZipCode { get; set; }
        public string Country { get; set; }
        public float? Latitude { get; set; }
        public float? Longitude { get; set; }
        public string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
        public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
        public string Website { get; set; }
        public virtual ICollection<Program> Programs { get; set; }
        public virtual ICollection<PlayerType> PlayerTypes { get; set; }
    }

public class PlayerType
    {
        public int PlayerTypeId { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public int SortOrder { get; set; }
        public bool IsActive { get; set; }
        public virtual ICollection<Location> Locations { get; set; }
    }

And a View Model Class

public class LocationViewModel
    {
        public Location Location { get; set; }
        public IList<PlayerType> SelectPlayerTypes { get; set; } 

        public LocationViewModel()
        {
            Location = new Location();
        }

    }

Within my Create Form, I have defined the model as

@model Locator.Models.LocationViewModel

And have fields like the following:

div class="editor-label">
    @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Location.Name)
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
    @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Location.Name)
    @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Location.Name)
</div>

In my controller to handle the POST I have

[HttpPost]
        public ActionResult Create(LocationViewModel location)
        {
            if (ModelState.IsValid) {
                locationRepository.InsertOrUpdate(location.Location);
                locationRepository.Save();
                return RedirectToAction("Index");
            }
            location.SelectPlayerTypes = golferTypeRepository.All.Where(p => p.IsActive).ToList();
            return View(location);
        }

The problem is that I have a Location object but none of the properties are to set to the values entered in the form.

Am I doing something wrong here?

Thanks

Answer 1

Here's the problem:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(LocationViewModel location)

Do you see it? It's the name of your action argument: location.

Look at your view model now, it has a property named Location:

public Location Location { get; set; }

This confuses the model binder. It no longer knows whether you need to bind the LocationViewModel or its property.

So simply rename to avoid the conflict:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(LocationViewModel model)