Working with JSON objects in ASP.NET MVC

In this paper I am going to explain, a simple way of working with javascript, JSON objects to make call to MVC Action through Ajax.

 

A little introduction to Object representations in Javscript

In javascript, a value to an object can be provided in many ways.

1. Simple assignment

rows = 24;

2. Assignment in Json style

“columns” : “12”

3. Representation of Object

 var newBlog = {blogName: "Working with Json", Content: "….", Index: 51 }

Note that braces represent that it contains an object.

4. Instantiating an Object with “new” keyword

var myString = new String();

5. Representation of Array

var styles = [
 {Height:”20”, Width: “50” },
 {Height: “30”, Width: “50”},
 {Height: “10”, Width: “40”}

];

 

Note that the square brackets represent the Array of object/variables.

From javascript object, JSON object can be generated by using JSON.stringify() method. An implementation of JSON.stringify() can be seen in the example at the end of the paper.

 

Planning the Javascript object for MVC call

MVC includes a default support for JSON binding. When you pass a Json object from client side, the MVC runtime makes all its attempts to understand it, and translate that into a CLR object for you.

For example,

To represent the following class in MVC server side

public class RequestPosition
{
	public int RequestID { get; set; }
	public int Position { get; set; }
}

javascript object has to be,

var position = { RequestID : 102, Positon=1 }

Note that the position object has two members and their names (RequestID, Position) are the same as the RequestPosition class’s properties.

 

To receive this javascript object the MVC action should have the following syntax.

public JsonResult ProcessRequestPosition(RequestPosition position)
{…}

Note that the Action has a parameter with the same name as the javascript object we prepared in the client side. When MVC runtime sees a parameter, it looks into the ViewData, query string, Json data etc. to find the value of its parameters.

 

A complete implementation

Code on the client side

$(document).ready(function () {

	$("#Save").on("click", function (){
		var requestSequence = [{ RequestID: "10", Position: 5 },
			{ RequestID: "11", Position: 8}];
		requestSequence[requestSequence.length] = { RequestID: "12",Position: 9};

		$.ajax("/Queue/SaveRequestSequence", {
			type: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
			dataType: "json",
			success: function (message) { alert(message); },
			error: function () { alert('Oops, the operation failed'); }
		});
	});
 
});

 

Note that requestSequence is an array and is initialized with 2 objects first. Then a third object is added using the index based assignment “requestSequence[requestSequence.length]. requestSequence.length in the place of index ensures that you always add the value at the end of the array.

Here $.ajax does the magic of calling the SaveRequestSequence action from client side.

 

Code on the server side

	[HttpPost]
	public JsonResult SaveRequestSequence(RequestPosition[] requestSequence)
	{
		//Save Operation
 
		return Json("Sequence saved successfully!");
	}