How do you handle multiple submit buttons in ASP.NET MVC Framework?

Question

Is there some easy way to handle multiple submit buttons from the same form? For example:

<% Html.BeginForm(\"MyAction\", \"MyController\", FormMethod.Pos         


        

Answer 1

Give your submit buttons a name, and then inspect the submitted value in your controller method:

<% Html.BeginForm("MyAction", "MyController", FormMethod.Post); %>


<% Html.EndForm(); %>

posting to

public class MyController : Controller {
    public ActionResult MyAction(string submitButton) {
        switch(submitButton) {
            case "Send":
                // delegate sending to another controller action
                return(Send());
            case "Cancel":
                // call another action to perform the cancellation
                return(Cancel());
            default:
                // If they've submitted the form without a submitButton, 
                // just return the view again.
                return(View());
        }
    }

    private ActionResult Cancel() {
        // process the cancellation request here.
        return(View("Cancelled"));
    }

    private ActionResult Send() {
        // perform the actual send operation here.
        return(View("SendConfirmed"));
    }

}

EDIT:

To extend this approach to work with localized sites, isolate your messages somewhere else (e.g. compiling a resource file to a strongly-typed resource class)

Then modify the code so it works like:

<% Html.BeginForm("MyAction", "MyController", FormMethod.Post); %>


<% Html.EndForm(); %>

and your controller should look like this:

// Note that the localized resources aren't constants, so 
// we can't use a switch statement.

if (submitButton == Resources.Messages.Send) { 
    // delegate sending to another controller action
    return(Send());

} else if (submitButton == Resources.Messages.Cancel) {
     // call another action to perform the cancellation
     return(Cancel());
}