I am trying to use session state in MVC and I have been stuck for the entire evening!
I realise session state should be used sparingly in MVC - but I am sure I want to use it for this one page - so would appreciate solutions rather than opinions.
Basically, I have a contact form with a CAPTCHA image. When the page loads I want to set the session to the characters used in the CAPTCH image (dynamically generated image).
I have an 'new image' link which async creates a new code, sets the session and dynamically loads a new image to screen.
The session stays sets as long as the page doesn't load or reload. I need to be able to validate the user input against the code in session (which should reflect what is displayed to the user) but the session is empty.
If I perform an AJAX reload on the image i.e. set the session asynchronously - the session is set when I perform a post!!
What's going on?
I need to be able to persist the session value - arrrhhhh!
I have this is a base controller:
public new HttpContextBase HttpContext
{
get
{
HttpContextWrapper context = new HttpContextWrapper(System.Web.HttpContext.Current);
return (HttpContextBase)context;
}
}
and in the controller I have:
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Contact(ContactForm c, string button)
{
string sessCaptcha = HttpContext.Session["CAPTCHA_Contact"] == null ? "" : HttpContext.Session["CAPTCHA_Contact"].ToString();
}
Any ideas????? pretty pls with a cherry on top :)
Thanks!
I am so embarrased right now...
Never ever set a session value before a Response.End() (and i believe also the same applies to response.redirect).
OMG - that's 4 hours I will never ever get back again!
Here is the demo code to illustrate my ineptitude...
public ActionResult Page1()
{
Session["test1"] = "hello world";
// This means the session won't be set
// It's is used in valid circumstances..e.g. setting session, then dynamically generating an image based on that value.
Response.End();
return View();
}
public ActionResult Page2()
{
ViewBag.Test = Session["test1"].ToString();
return View();
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Page2(FormCollection fc)
{
ViewBag.Test = "...is still..." + Session["test1"].ToString();
return View();
}
You may want to look into using the TempData object
http://blog.donnfelker.com/2010/02/26/aspnet-mvc2-tempdata-now-persists/
Related
I am building a service which requires a somewhat lengthy setup process. I have it broken into 4 models and 4 corresponding views. They are Setup, Setup2, Setup3, and Setup4. Each of these views gathers information from the user which is stored in a User object. I have been passing the user along like this:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Setup(FormCollection values)
{
User registeringUser = new User();
registeringUser.email = User.Identity.Name;
registeringUser.fName = values["fName"];
registeringUser.lName = values["lName"];
registeringUser.phone = values["phone"];
return RedirectToAction("/Setup2", registeringUser);
}
For some reason, this seems to work just fine for the first jump (from Setup to Setup2) but after that I'm getting weird behavior, such as User. getting set to null when the User is passed to another View.
In a related, but slightly different issue, I need the last screen (Setup4) to be recursive. This screen adds a course in which the user is enrolled, and if they don't check the "This was my last class" button, it needs to basically clear the form so they can enter another course.
The entire Controller looks like this:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Setup4(FormCollection values, User registeringUser)
{
// values["allClassesAdded"] returns "false" as a string if box is unchecked, returns "true,false" if checked.
// Solution: parse string for "true"
if (utils.parseForTrue(values["allClassesAdded"]))
{
// TODO Redirect to "congratulations you're done" page.
database.CreateUserInDB(registeringUser);
return Redirect("/Home");
}
else
{
// Build course and add it to the list in the User
course c = new course(values);
if (Request.IsAuthenticated)
{
//registeringUser.currentCourses.Add(c);
registeringUser.AddCourse(c);
return RedirectToAction("/Setup4", registeringUser); // <---- This doesn't really work right
//return View();
}
else
{
return Redirect("/Account/Login");
}
}
}
This is my first project with MVC, so if you find that I'm doing the entire thing completely incorrectly, feel free to not answer the question I asked and offer the proper solution to this need. I'm moving an existing (pure) C# project to MVC and I'm mainly just stuck on how to work within MVC's interesting structure. I'm very grateful for any help you can give!
Thanks!
You can store user related data in session without passing it between requests
Smth like this
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Step1(Step1Model model)
{
Session["UserRegistration"] = new UserRegistration
{
FirstName = model.fName,
....
}
....
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Step2(Step2Model model)
{
var userRegistration = Session["UserRegistration"] as UserRegistration;
if (userRegistration == null) { return Redirrect("Step1"); }
userRegistration.SomeField = model.someField;
...
Session["UserRegistration"] = userRegistration;
....
}
I'm not sure if this is the correct way to go about the problem I need to solve... however in an OnActionExecuting action filter that I have created, I set a cookie with various values. One of these values is used to determine whether the user is visiting the website for the very first time. If they are a new visitor then I set the ViewBag with some data so that I can display this within my view.
The problem I have is that in some of my controller actions I perform a RedirectToAction. The result is OnActionExecuting is fired twice, once for the original action and then a second time when it fires the new action.
<HttpGet()>
Function Index(ByVal PageID As String) As ActionResult
Dim wo As WebPage = Nothing
Try
wp = WebPages.GetWebPage(PageID)
Catch sqlex As SqlException
Throw
Catch ex As Exception
Return RedirectToAction("Index", New With {.PageID = "Home"})
End If
End Try
Return View("WebPage", wp)
End Function
This is a typical example. I have a data driven website that gets a webpage from the database based on the PageID specified. If the page cannot be found in the database I redirect the user to the home page.
Is it possible to prevent the double firing in anyway or is there a better way to set a cookie? The action filter is used on multiple controllers.
Had the same issue. Resolved by overriding property AllowMultiple:
public override bool AllowMultiple { get { return false; } }
public override void OnActionExecuting(HttpActionContext actionContext)
{
//your logic here
base.OnActionExecuting(actionContext);
}
You can save some flag value into TempData collection of controller on first executing and if this value presented, skip filter logic:
if (filterContext.Controller.TempData["MyActionFilterAttribute_OnActionExecuting"] == null)
{
filterContext.Controller.TempData["MyActionFilterAttribute_OnActionExecuting"] = true;
}
You could return the actual action instead of redirecting to the new action. That way, you dont cause an http-request, thereby not triggering the onactionexecuting (i believe)
Old question, but I just dealt with this so I thought I'd throw in my answer. After some investigating I disovered this was only happening on endpoints that returned a view (i.e. return View()). The only endpoints that had multiple OnActionExecuting fired were HTML views that were composed of partial views (i.e. return PartialView(...)), so a single request was "executing" multiple times.
I was applying my ActionFilterAttribute globally to all endpoints, which was working correctly on all other endpoints except for the view endpoints I just described. The solution was to create an additional attribute applied conditionally to the partial view endpoints.
// Used specifically to ignore the GlobalFilterAttribute filter on an endpoint
public class IgnoreGlobalFilterAttribute : Attribute { }
public class GlobalFilterAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
// Does not apply to endpoints decorated with Ignore attribute
if (!filterContext.ActionDescriptor.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(IgnoreGlobalFilterAttribute), false).Any())
{
// ... attribute logic here
}
}
}
And then on my partial view endpoints
[HttpGet]
[AllowAnonymous]
[IgnoreGlobalFilter] //HERE this keeps the attribute from firing again
public ActionResult GetPartialView()
{
// partial view logic
return PartialView();
}
I am calling a controller from more than one page and am using a returnUrl parameter to return the correct calling location:
public ActionResult EmailOrder(int id, string returnUrl)
{
var message = "The order has been emailed";
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(returnUrl)) return Redirect(returnUrl);
return RedirectToAction("Details", new { id, message });
}
How can I pass additional information back to the view when using Redirect(url)? In the above example, I want to be able to pass message back when returnUrl has a value.
If you are redirecting to another action method and you want to pass data that can be access in the new action method, you should use the ASP.MVC Controller TempData property. You use this as follows:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult MyActionMethod(Order order)
{
// write your logic here to save the Order
TempData["message"] = "here is some message";
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
Data in the TempData member will be preserved across a redirection. It will be accessible in the redirected page, and then will be removed. Once you read an entry in TempData, it will be marked for deletion.
public ActionResult RedirectedMethod()
{
//Retrieve data from TempData. It will then be marked for deletion
var data = TempData["message"].ToString();
}
If you want to get a value without marking it for deletion, you can use the "Peek" method:
var data = TempData.Peek("message")
Also, you can manually preserve a value that would otherwise be deleted by using the "Keep" method:
TempData.Keep("message")
TempData is of type TempDataDictionary.
Note that TempData uses ASP.Net Session state behind the scenes, so you must have session state turned on if you are using TempData.
For more information on TempData, see here.
Here's the situation: i have a SearchPage where an user can make a complex search. Nothing really unusual. After the results are displayed, the user can select one of them and move to another Page (Like a Master/Detail).
I have a breacrumb which holds the places where the user has been and it can have more than 4 levels (Like Main -> 2Page -> 3Page -> 4Page -> NPage). What i want is to maintain the state of each control on my complex search page, if the user uses the breacrumb to navigate backwards, since i don't want them to manually set all those search filters again.
So far, i've been using javascript:history.back(), but since i can have multiple levels on my breadcrumb, this hasn't been very useful. I was thinking about using OutputCache to do it, but i don't know how i would proceed.
UPDATE
I've just talked to a co-worker and he told me that some of our combobox (dropdownlist) are dynamically generated. So if the user select one item on the first combobox, the second will be filled with data related to the first selection.
OutputCache would cache the results for every user. Why don't you try to store the information in a cookie with page url and filter information. Each time an action is executed, read the cookie and populate the model (custom model for search) with those values found (if they match the page url, action in this situation). Pass the model to the view and let it repopulate the search criteria text boxes and check boxes.
UPDATE:
When a user fills in the search filter text boxes, you are passing that information back to a controller somehow. Probably as some kind of a strongly typed object.
Let's say your users get to enter the following information:
- Criteria
- StartDate
- EndDate
There is a model called SearchCriteria defined as:
public class SearchCriteria
{
public string Criteria { get; set; }
public DateTime? StartDate { get; set; }
public DateTime? EndDate { get; set; }
}
Your action could look something like this:
[HttpGet]
public ViewResult Search()
{
SearchCriteria criteria = new SearchCriteria();
if (Request.Cookies["SearchCriteria"] != null)
{
HttpCookie cookie = Request.Cookies["SearchCriteria"];
criteria.Criteria = cookie.Values["Criteria"];
criteria.StartDate = cookie.Values["StartDate"] ?? null;
criteria.EndDate = cookie.Values["EndDate"] ?? null;
}
return View(criteria);
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Search(SearchCriteria criteria)
{
// At this point save the data into cookie
HttpCookie cookie;
if (Request.Cookies["SearchCriteria"] != null)
{
cookie = Request.Cookies["SearchCriteria"];
cookie.Values.Clear();
}
else
{
cookie = new HttpCookie("SearchCriteria");
}
cookie.Values.Add("Criteria", criteria.Criteria);
if (criteria.StartDate.HasValue)
{
cookie.Values.Add("StartDate", criteria.StartDate.Value.ToString("yyyy-mm-dd"));
}
if (criteria.EndDate.HasValue)
{
cookie.Values.Add("EndDate", criteria.EndDate.Value.ToString("yyyy-mm-dd"));
}
// Do something with the criteria that user posted
return View();
}
This is some kind of a solution. Please understand that I did not test this and I wrote it from top of my head. It is meant to give you an idea just how you might solve this problem. You should probably also add Action to SearchCriteria so that you can check whether this is an appropriate action where you would read the cookie. Also, reading and writing a cookie should be moved into a separate method so that you can read it from other actions.
Hope this helps,
Huske
i have a dropdown list which select a value
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Screenname(FormCollection collection)
{
Viewdata["screenname"] = collection[0];
return RedirectToAction("Index", new { ScreenName = ViewData["screenname"] });
}
then i want to access this ViewData in other actions like this
[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
public ActionResult Create(FormCollection collection, string screenname)
{
try
{
/// thats my dataobject which creates
DataObj.SaveData(Guid.Empty, collection, screenname);
return RedirectToAction("Index", new { ScreenName = ViewData["screenname"] });
}
catch
{
return View("Error");
}
}
where index looks like this ...
public ActionResult Index(string ScreenName)
{
///thats my list
GetTable = new GetDataTable(ScreenName);
return View(GetTable);
}
First when i select the value and index gets executed properly.... but when i try to access the viewdata again it doesn't contain the value so anybody if please can help ...
or alternate method to save and retrieve data .
The ViewData object is specific for the particular action that is executing. To pass data between actions, use TempData. more on the difference between the two on MSDN.
You can also directly write to the session state through the Controller.Session property.
This has actually been covered quite often here. The solution for now is to use TempData to save the data you need before you use RedirectToAction().
If you do a search for "RedirectToAction" you'll find a number of posts covering this topic, such as this one.
The next official release of the framework will fix this.
I used a view to take the data from the user and then saved it to a static variable and then used this variable to pass the data to all the other views .
Thanks anyways