AJAX.BeginForm send empty FormCollection list to MVC Controller

Question

i have a very simple code:

@using (Ajax.BeginForm("SearchAccount", "Account", new AjaxOptions { UpdateTargetId = "SearchResults", HttpMethod = "Get", InsertionMode = InsertionMode.Replace })) 
    {
        <fieldset>
            <input id="txtSearchBox" name="SearchString" type="text"  />
        </fieldset>
        <input type="submit" value="Search"  />
    }

and on controller side i have following code

public PartialViewResult SearchAccount(FormCollection formCollection)
    {
        try
        {
            string SearchString = formCollection["SearchString"];
            List<Moovers.DAL.Account> Accounts = Moovers.BL.Account.SearchAccount(SearchString);

            return PartialView("_AccountSearchResult", Accounts);        
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw;
        }

    }

the problem is "FormCollection", which is empty. What could be the possible reason ?

Answer 1

This is because you're using "GET" as your method.

See https://stackoverflow.com/a/2265210/120955

Answer 2

Why you want to use FormCollection? You can directly have the SearchString as the action parameter right?

public PartialViewResult SearchAccount(string SearchString)
{
  try
  {
     var Accounts = Moovers.BL.Account.SearchAccount(SearchString);
     return PartialView("_AccountSearchResult", Accounts);        
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
     throw;
  }
}

If you are passing multiple values from Form then you can create a view model and simplify your life.

Ex.

public class SearchModel
{
   public string SearchString { get; set; }
   .. others
}

public PartialViewResult SearchAccount(SearchModel searchModel)
{
  ...
}

Note, the important thing is the names of the form fields should match the parameter/property names.