Ajax POST not parsing properly

Question

I am trying to pass a data structure from javascript back to C# using JQuery AJAX Post. The structure the javascript side looks like this:

var dt = {};
dt.FailureMode = downtime.general;
dt.FailureDetailId = downtime.detail;
dt.Start = shared_formatDateWithTime(downtime.startTime);
dt.End = shared_formatDateWithTime(downtime.endTime);
dt.FailureDescription = downtime.description;
dt.FailureSourceId = downtime.source;
dt.FailureReporterId = downtime.reporter;
dt.DowntimeId = downtime.downtimeId;
dt.EquipmentArray = dtBuildUploadArray(downtime.associatedEquip);
dt.ProcessUnitId = window.downtimeConfig.ProcessUnitId;;

shared_showWorkingWindow();
var url = window.WEBROOT + 'Equipment/_EquipmentScheduleLogDowntime';
$.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    data:dt,
    url: url,
    async: true
});

The Equipment array is an array of 12 objects that look like this:

var equip = new Object();
equip.EquipmentId = window.downtimeConfig.AssociatedEquipments[i].Id;
equip.EquipmentName = window.downtimeConfig.AssociatedEquipments[i].Name;
if (primary == i) {
    equip.PrimaryCause = 1;
} else {
    equip.PrimaryCause = 0;
}
equip.Affected = 1;
ar[ar.length] = equip;

Using the Chrome network tool, I see that the JSON data looks like this:

FailureMode:1
FailureDetailId:1
Start:1/22/2014 5:50 PM
End:1/22/2014 5:50 PM
FailureDescription:
FailureSourceId:1
FailureReporterId:1
DowntimeId:0
EquipmentArray[0][EquipmentId]:1
EquipmentArray[0][EquipmentName]:CR SGS 1
EquipmentArray[0][PrimaryCause]:0
EquipmentArray[0][Affected]:1
EquipmentArray[1][EquipmentId]:2
EquipmentArray[1][EquipmentName]:CR Alkon 1
EquipmentArray[1][PrimaryCause]:0
EquipmentArray[1][Affected]:1
EquipmentArray[2][EquipmentId]:5
EquipmentArray[2][EquipmentName]:CR Block Machine 1
EquipmentArray[2][PrimaryCause]:0
EquipmentArray[2][Affected]:1
ProcessUnitId:1

some array rows removed for clarity.

My Controller line looks like this:

public void _EquipmentScheduleLogDowntime(ReportedDowntime reportedDowntime)

My reported downtime structure looks like this:

public class ReportedDowntime : DatabagUtility
{
    public int FailureMode { get; set; }
    public int FailureDetailId { get; set; }
    public DateTime Start { get; set; }
    public DateTime? End { get; set; }
    public string FailureDescription { get; set; }
    public int FailureSourceId { get; set; }
    public int FailureReporterId { get; set; }
    public int DowntimeId { get; set; }
    public string DowntimeColor { get; set; }
    public string FailureSourceDescription { get; set; }
    public string FailureReporterDescription { get; set; }
    public string FailureModeDescription { get; set; }
    public string FailureDetailDescription { get; set; }
    public IEnumerable<AffectedEquipment> Equipments { get; set; }
    public AffectedEquipment[] EquipmentArray { get; set; }
    public int ProcessUnitId { get; set; }

Note the IEnumerable and the Array. I tried the array when the IEnumerable didn't work.

The AffectedEquipment looks like this:

public class AffectedEquipment
{
    public int EquipmentId { get; set; }
    public bool PrimaryCause { get; set; }
    public bool Affected { get; set; }
    public string EquipmentName { get; set; }
}

When the controller line is called, I get values for each of the top level elements in reported downtime. I get an array of AffectedEquipment of the proper length, but the values of each of the elements is 0 or null, as appropriate. Can anyone tell me why the child elements are not populating?

Answer 1

I found an answer at this question: Passing array to controller using jquery Post

I changed my post syntax to include contentType:'application/json', data:JSON.stringify(dt) to pass JSON instead of the native format.

The total clause now looks like this:

 $.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    contentType:'application/json',
    data:JSON.stringify(dt),
    url: url,
    async: true,
});