Passing data from View to Controller

Question

In an ASP.NET MVC application, I'm making logic for Admin to accept or reject new members. I'm showing a list of members and two buttons Accept and Reject, like this:

<% foreach (var mm in (ViewData["pendingmembers"] as List<MyMember>)) %>
<% { %>
   <tr><td>Username:<%=mm.UserName %></td><td>
   <tr><td>Firstname:<%=mm.FirstName %></td><td>
   ...etc...
   <tr>
      <td>
      <% using (Html.BeginForm("AcceptPendingUser", "Admin"))
      { %>
          <input type="submit" value="Accept" />
      <% } %>
      </td>
      <td>
      <% using (Html.BeginForm("RejectPendingUser", "Admin"))
      { %>
        <input type="submit" value="Reject" />
      <% } %>
      </td>
    </tr>
<% } %>

So, the list of pending member data is in a list of MyMember-objects. Each MyMember object will be printed out member and two buttons are setup for the admin to either accept or reject a pending member.

Then, in the controller I'm separating the handling of those two input fields/forms, like this:

public ActionResult AcceptPendingUser()
{
   // TODO: Add code to save user into DB and send welcome email.
   return RedirectToAction("Index");
}

public ActionResult RejectPendingUser()
{
   // TODO: Add code to remove user from PendingUsers list and send rejection email.
   return RedirectToAction("Index");
}

I would like to directly get the object next to the button the user pressed. How can I send the MyMember object from the View to the controller? Or how do I send perhaps a numeric index with button press? Maybe with a hidden field?

Answer 1

The simplest option would probably be a hidden input:

<input type="hidden" value="<%=mm.Key%>" name="key" id="key" />

(name accordingly; in each form)

The two controller would then take an argument called "key" (rename to suit). If you want to parse the object from multiple inputs, you'll need a ModelBinder. Of course, rather than 2*n forms, you might consider either query-string based urls, or use something like jQuery (or some other script helper) to submit the data without needing the forms (if script is available).