ASP.NET MVC: Model Binding and Ajax Request

Question

I have a button:

<a id="2" class="modalInput specialbutton" href="/Employee/Delete/2" rel="#yesno"><img src="/Content/Images/application_delete.png" alt="Delete" /></a>

Javascript for the button:

var buttons = $("#yesno button").click(function (e) {
                var yes = buttons.index(this) === 0;
                if (yes) {
                    $.ajax({
                        url: overlayElem.attr('href'),
                        success: function (data) {
                            $("#gridcontainer").html(data);
                        }
                    });
                }
            });

Delete Action:

public ActionResult Delete(int id)
{
    DeleteTeamEmployeeInput deleteTeamEmployeeInput = new DeleteTeamEmployeeInput { TeamEmployee = id };

    return Command<DeleteTeamEmployeeInput, TeamEmployee>(deleteTeamEmployeeInput,
        s => RedirectToAction<EmployeeController>(x => x.Index(1)),
        f => RedirectToAction<EmployeeController>(x => x.Index(1)));
}

The problem is the id parameter. It would be nice to use directly DeleteTeamEmployeeInput.

public ActionResult Delete(DeleteTeamEmployeeInput deleteTeamEmployeeInput )
{
    return Command<DeleteTeamEmployeeInput, TeamEmployee>(deleteTeamEmployeeInput,
        s => RedirectToAction<EmployeeController>(x => x.Index(1)),
        f => RedirectToAction<EmployeeController>(x => x.Index(1)));
}

When I use the complext object, it is always null. The simple int type works fine.

How can use a complex type for my delete action?

Class DeleteTeamEmployeeInput:

public class DeleteTeamEmployeeInput
{
    public int TeamEmployee { get; set; }
}

Delete Button:

public static string DeleteImageButton(this HtmlHelper helper, int id)
{
    string controller = GetControllerName(helper);
    string url = String.Format("/{0}/Delete/{1}", controller, id);

    return ImageButton(helper, url, "Delete", "/Content/Images/application_delete.png", "#yesno", "modalInput", id);
}

Answer 1

You definitely need to cancel the default action result by returning false from your click callback or your AJAX request might not even have the time to execute before you get redirected. As far as sending the entire object (which contains only a single TeamEmployee integer propertry) is concerned you could do this:

// that selector seems strange as you don't have a button inside your anchor
// but an <img>. You probably want to double check selector
var buttons = $('#yesno button').click(function (e) {
    var yes = buttons.index(this) === 0;
    if (yes) {
        $.ajax({
            url: this.href,
            success: function (data) {
                $("#gridcontainer").html(data);
            }
        // that's what I was talking about canceling the default action
        });
        return false;
    }
});

and then generate your anchor so that it includes this parameter:

<a href="<%: Url.Action("delete", "employee", new { TeamEmployee  = "2" }) %>" id="link2" class="modalInput specialbutton" rel="#yesno">
    <img src="<%: Url.Content("~/Content/Images/application_delete.png") %>" alt="Delete" />
</a>

Now you can safely have:

public ActionResult Delete(DeleteTeamEmployeeInput deleteTeamEmployeeInput)
{
    ...
}

Remark: id="2" in your anchor is not valid identifier name.