ASP.NET MVC Html.BeginForm Problem

Question

I have a partial view:

<%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl<DomainModel.Entities.Product>" %>

<div class="item">
    <h3><%= Model.Name %></h3>
    <%= Model.Description %>

    <% using (Html.BeginForm("AddToCart", "Cart")) { %>
        <%= Html.Hidden("ProductID") %>
        <%= Html.Hidden("returnUrl", ViewContext.HttpContext.Request.Url.PathAndQuery) %>
        <input type="submit" value="+ Add to cart" />
    <% } %>

    <h4><%= Model.Price.ToString("c")%></h4>
</div>

And here is the html that gets rendered:

<div class="item"> 
    <h3>Kayak</h3> 
    A boat for one person
    <form action="" method="post">
        <input id="ProductID" name="ProductID" type="hidden" value="1" /> 
        <input id="returnUrl" name="returnUrl" type="hidden" value="/" /> 
        <input type="submit" value="+ Add to cart" /> 
    </form> 
    <h4>$275.00</h4> 
</div>

Nothing happens when the submit button is clicked and I am pretty sure it's because the form action attribute has no value. Shouldn't BeginForm(action, controller) take care of rendering out the form action? What am I doing wrong?

EDIT

Code from CartController AddToCart action:

    public RedirectToRouteResult AddToCart(Cart cart, int productID, string returnUrl)
    {
        Product product = productsRepository.Products.FirstOrDefault(p => p.ProductID == productID);

        cart.AddItem(product, 1);
        return RedirectToAction("Index", new { returnUrl });
    }

EDIT 2

The view that renders the partial:

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
    <% foreach (var product in Model) { %>
        <% Html.RenderPartial("ProductSummary", product); %>
    <% } %>

    <div class="pager">
    Page:
    <%=Html.PageLinks((int)ViewData["CurrentPage"],
                      (int)ViewData["TotalPages"],
                      x => Url.Action("List", new { page = x, category = ViewData["CurrentCategory"] })) %>
    </div>
</asp:Content>

EDIT 3

Routes:

public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes)
    {
        routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}");

        routes.MapRoute(
            null, // don't need a name
            "", // matches the root URL, i.e. ~/
            new { controller = "Products", action = "List", category = (string)null, page = 1 } //Defaults
        );

        routes.MapRoute(
            null, // don't need name
            "Page{page}", // URL pattern, e.g. ~/Page683
            new { controller = "Products", action = "List", category = (string)null }, // defaults
            new { page = @"\d+" } // constraints: page must be numerical
        );

        routes.MapRoute(null,
            "{category}",
            new { controller = "Products", action = "List", page = 1 });

        routes.MapRoute(null,
            "{category}/Page{page}",
            new { controller = "Products", action = "List" },
            new { page = @"\d+" } // constraints: page must be numerical
        );

    }

Can you post the code from CartController.AddToCart() action ? — eu-ge-ne
– eu-ge-ne, Commented Jun 16, 2009 at 18:18
What does you Html.RenderPartial code look like in the View? — KP.
– KP., Commented Jun 16, 2009 at 18:48

John G · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-16 19:19:08Z

15

It looks like you don't have a default route set up. BeginForm uses UrlHelper.GenerateUrl to match up the action/controller names to your route collection. So if you don't have a route that maps to AddToCart, then it can't generate a URL for it. Try adding this to the bottom of your routes:

routes.MapRoute(
    "Default",
    "{controller}/{action}/{id}",
    new { controller = "Products", action = "List", id = "" }
);

answered Jun 16, 2009 at 19:19

John G

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2 Comments

user74754 Over a year ago

Upvote. Thanks so much. I'm surprised there aren't more mentions of this in The Google. Also, I kind of wish that if no route were matched that Html.BeginForm(...) would throw an exception.

andrewf Over a year ago

@ardave, I totally agree: it should fail fast, not when I submit the form and wonder why it’s not working!

Graham Watson · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-27 00:05:34Z

0

This is from the main application example used in Steven Sanderson's excellent 'Pro ASP MVC Framework' book.

Funnily enough I made exactly the same mistake and omitted the final .MapRoute call given in the listing on page 130.

routes.MapRoute("Default", "controller}/{action}"

It was Johnny G's answer to this post that helped me to find my mistake as well.

Nice one Johnny!

answered Oct 27, 2009 at 0:05

Graham Watson

314 bronze badges

1 Comment

Sk93 Over a year ago

But, to be fair, he couldn't format a comment as cleanly as this answer, so, whilst it's wrong, I can understand it THIS TIME?

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