Form not submitting and no error is being produced with MVC

Question

I have a form in my MVC application that in theory should submit data back to my database using a Repository class.

However, when I submit the form (http://localhost:1028/Admin/NewUser/), the URL changes to where the form should be submitting to, which is fine (http://localhost:1028/Admin/NewUser/Submit), but once it has been submitted, it should send the user to a confirmation page.

From what I can tell, I'm moving through all my pages correctly until it comes to the submit, where it displays the form again but under /Admin/NewUser/Submit and the data is not inserted into the database.

This is the ActionResult I'm using:

Public Function Submit() As ActionResult
         Try
            Dim user = New hdUser() With { _
                .userLogon = Request.Form("UserLogin"), _
                .userPass = Request.Form("UserPassword"), _
                .userEmail = Request.Form("UserEmail"), _
                .RealName = Request.Form("UserFullName"), _
                .isLive = 1, _
                .avatar = "noavatar.gif" _
             }
            userRepository.Add(user)
            userRepository.Save()

            Return Redirect("/Admin/NewUser/Confirm")
        Catch ex As Exception
            ModelState.AddModelError("Error", ex)
        End Try
        Return View()
    End Function

I'm fairly new to MVC so I'm not entirely sure if the above is correct or not.

And in my data repository class UserRepository.vb, the two functions I'm using are:

Public Sub Add(ByVal user As hdUser) Implements IUserRepository.Add
            db.hdUsers.InsertOnSubmit(user)
        End Sub

and

Public Sub Save() Implements IUserRepository.Save
            db.SubmitChanges()
        End Sub

And the form I have created is:

<form action="/Admin/NewUser/Submit" method="post">
                <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2">
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>User's Full Name</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.TextBox("UserFullName")%>
                            </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>User Login</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.TextBox("UserLogin")%>
                            </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>Password</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.Password("UserPassword")%>
                           </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>Email Address</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.TextBox("UserEmail")%>
                         </td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td align="right"><input type="submit" value="Create" /></td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
        </form>

The code doesn't produce any errors but also doesn't seem to be submitting to the database. So I'm not entirely sure where I've gone wrong.

It could be obvious to someone more experienced, but I really haven't a clue on this one.

Is this my code that's causing the issue or some other fault?

Thanks in advance for any help.

---

EDIT: Based on Zhaph - Ben Duguid comment, I have made the following edits:

AdminController.vb

<AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)> _
    Public Function NewUser(ByVal formValues As FormCollection) As ActionResult
        Try
            Dim user = New hdUser()
            user.userLogon = Request.Form("UserLogin")
            user.userPass = Request.Form("UserPassword")
            user.userEmail = Request.Form("UserEmail")
            user.RealName = Request.Form("UserFullName")
            user.isLive = 1
            user.avatar = "noavatar.gif"
            UpdateModel(user)
            userRepository.Add(user)
            userRepository.Save()
        Catch ex As Exception
            ModelState.AddModelError("Error", ex)
        End Try
        Return View()
    End Function

NewUser.aspx

<%Html.BeginForm()%>
            <%=Html.ValidationMessage("Error")%>
                  <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2">
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>User's Full Name</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.TextBox("UserFullName")%>
                            <%=Html.ValidationMessage("Name", "*")%></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>User Login</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.TextBox("UserLogin")%>
                            <%=Html.ValidationMessage("Username", "*")%></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>Password</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.Password("UserPassword")%>
                            <%=Html.ValidationMessage("Password", "*")%></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td><strong>Email Address</strong> <br />
                         <%=Html.TextBox("UserEmail")%>
                         <%=Html.ValidationMessage("Email", "*")%></td>
                    </tr>
                    <tr>
                        <td align="right"><input type="submit" value="Create" /></td>
                    </tr>
                </table>
                <% Html.EndForm() %>

Which now produces an error of The value '' is invalid. for me.

Does this mean that form values aren't being passed correctly to the controller?

---

EDIT: I've made those edits in response Zhaph - Ben Duguid's edit and I've changed the Form elements to the DB field names (for testing at least). And now, when the page is submitted Name, Login and Email are all filled, password is blank (which I'm assuming is expected behaviour as per password boxes) but I still receive the "The value '' is invalid" error.

Answer 1

Response.Write in your controller isn't going to do anything to the view.

You should be returning your model back to the edit page, with any errors in

ModelState.AddModelError();

There's a very good example of how you can implement a Repository pattern, and take advantage of the ASP.NET MVC model binding features, etc in the NerdDinner Chapter from the Professional ASP.NET MVC book.

An example controller I have (in c# I'm afraid) based on the Nerd Dinner samples:

//
// POST: /AdminAlbums/Create

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Create(FormCollection collection)
{
  var album = new Album();

  // Method on System.Web.Mvc.Controller, that takes a form collection, and
  // using reflection on the Model, assigns values to it from the form.
  UpdateModel(album);

  if (album.IsValid)
  {
    // These methods are the same as yours
    m_PhotoRepository.Add(album);
    m_PhotoRepository.Save();

    // In this instance, I'm returning the user to a list view of Albums
    // for editing, probably ought to send them to the page to start 
    // uploading photos.
    return RedirectToAction("Index");
  }

  // Still here, so I'm going to set up some ViewData I need.
  ViewData["Title"] = "Create a new album";
  ViewData["Message"] = "Create Album";

  // I'm picking up errors from the model here.
  // RuleViolation is my own class, implemented in a partial on Album.
  foreach (RuleViolation violation in album.GetRuleViolations())
  {
    ModelState.AddModelError(violation.PropertyName, violation.ErrorMessage);
  }

  return View(album);
}

So you can see I return the model back to the main view if there's an error, to populate the Validation summary.

The relevant part of the view is:

<%= Html.ValidationSummary("Edit was unsuccessful. Please correct the errors and try again.") %>
<% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%>
  <fieldset>
    <legend>Album details</legend>
    <div class="form_row">
      <label for="Caption" class="left_label">Album caption:</label>
      <%= Html.TextBox("Caption", Model.Caption, new { @class = "textbox" })%>
      <%= Html.ValidationMessage("Caption", "*") %>
      <div class="cleaner">&nbsp;</div>
    </div>
    <div class="form_row">
      <label for="IsPublic" class="left_label">Is this album public:</label>
      <%= Html.CheckBox("IsPublic", Model.IsPublic) %>
    </div>
    <div class="form_row">
      <input type="submit" value="Save" />
    </div>
  </fieldset>
<% } %>

---

Edit in response to question edit

Sorry, I should have clarified:

A lot of this is based on using the Helper methods provided by the ASP.NET MVC framework - you'll notice that I'm using methods like Html.TextBox to generate my fields, with their name/id pulled from the model itself. This way, if I load the view with ModelErrors in the ModelState, the helper will add the relevant details to rendered HTML to include the following mark-up

<label for="Caption" class="left_label">Caption:</label>
<input class="input-validation-error textbox" 
       id="Caption" name="Caption" type="text" value="" />
<span class="field-validation-error">*</span>

The other option you could have would be to add a message to the ViewData collection, and if it has a value, display that on your view.

---

Edit in response to question edit

A couple of things to bear in mind:

1) The identifiers of the Form elements and the Validation controls should be the same:

<%= Html.TextBox("Caption", Model.Caption, new { @class = "textbox" })%>
<%= Html.ValidationMessage("Caption", "*") %>

(you have things like "UserEmail" and "Email")

2) You should be returning the hdUser to the view on error - so try something like this:

<AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)> _
Public Function NewUser(ByVal formValues As FormCollection) As ActionResult
  Dim user = New hdUser()
  Try
    UpdateModel(user)
    user.isLive = 1
    user.avatar = "noavatar.gif"

    userRepository.Add(user)
    userRepository.Save()
  Catch ex As Exception
      ModelState.AddModelError("Error", ex)
  End Try
  Return View(user)
End Function