How to serialize an object in MVC 5 Razor view

Question

I have tried to follow this post in order to create a 3 page form wizard that passes data to each page.

He uses the HTML helper serialize , to serialize an object in the view.

@Html.Serialize("wizard", Model)

However this HTML helper isn't available in MVC 5 it seems.

I found another related post to this here where he suggests using the following to serialize the object.

@Html.Hidden("otherComplexData", new Microsoft.Web.Mvc.MvcSerializer().Serialize(complexObject))

But I then get the following error

There is no argument given that corresponds to the required formal parameter 'mode' of 'MvcSerializer.Serialize(object, SerializationMode)'

It seems to want a SerializationMode, however the documented one doesn't. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.web.mvc.mvcserializer.serialize(v=vs.118).aspx

What direction can I go in now?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here's the Serialization option you need:

https://github.com/ASP-NET-MVC/ASP.NET-Mvc-3/blob/master/mvc3/src/MvcFutures/Mvc/SerializationMode.cs

Options are Signed or EncryptedAndSigned .

You can try that and see if it will work.

There's multiple ways to encode data that will work for you. You could put the values in a hidden input using Json.Encode for the view, and Json.Decode on the server side.