MVC pass json data to controller

Question

EDIT: Thanks for catching these errors Ash There were 3 problems here

1. The JSON request was too large to be deserialized I had to add <add key="aspnet:MaxJsonDeserializerMembers" value="150000" /> in the app settings
2. I forgot the getters and setters in one of my classes
3. I misspelled one of my properties

I am trying to pass some json data to a controller. When ever I pass a js Object to the Controller my model is null. Shouldn't the default model binder take care of this? I can't find out why I am getting null when passing data to the controller. I have looked at other SO questions but none have helped so far.

The data looks like this

{
Data: [{
       duration: 5,
       end_date: "06-04-2013 00:00"
       id: 1,
       open: true,
       parent: 0,
       progress: 0,
       start_date: "01-04-2013 00:00",
       text : "PcB ddCcgoMordiF Arr e"
      }]
Links: //empty array of something similar
}

These are what my DTO's look like

public class GanttRequestDto
{
    public IEnumerable<GanttTaskDto> Data;
    public IEnumerable<GanttLinkDto> Links;
}



 public class GanttTaskDto
    {
         public int Id { get; set; }
         public string Test { get; set; }
         public DateTime Start_date { get; set; }
         public DateTime  End_date { get; set; }
         public int Duration { get; set; }
         public bool Open { get; set; }
         public decimal Progress { get; set; }
         public int? ParentId { get; set; }
}

public class GanttLinkDto
{
     public int Id { get; set; }
     public string Type { get; set; }
     public int Source { get; set; }
     public int Target { get; set; }
}

My controller looks like this

[HttpPost]
public BetterJsonResult SaveGanttChartData(GanttRequestDto ganttDataModel)
{
    //do something
    return null;
}

My JS code

InitSaveButton() {
    $("#save-btn").click(function() {
        var ganttData = gantt.serialize();
        var model = {
            Data: ganttData.data,
            Links: ganttData.links
        };
        Ajax.ajaxRequest(null, "/Gantt/SaveGanttChartData?ganttDataModel",  model, null, "Saving Gantt Data", "Success", null);
    });
}

Here is what my Ajax request looks like

//url:string
//model:json object
//updateId (optional): area to update,
//toastMessage: optional toast message
//toasTitle: optional toast title
//onComplete: optional callback function
Ajax.ajaxRequest = function (httpVerb, url, model, updateId, toastMessage, toastTitle, onComplete) {
    if (httpVerb === null || httpVerb.length === 0) httpVerb = "POST";
    $.ajax({
        url: url,
        type: httpVerb,
        cache: false,
        data: JSON.stringify(model),
        dataType: "json",
        contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
    }).done(function (data) {
        Ajax.ajaxSuccess(data, updateId, toastMessage, toastTitle);
    }).fail(function (err) {
        Ajax.ajaxFailure(err);
    }).always(function (data) {
        if (onComplete && typeof onComplete === 'function') {
            onComplete(data);
        }
    });
};

Answer 1

Here is the fix for your issue.

Two things here:

1. I assume the JSON sample data you provided is pure hand tailored, but still mentioning that the data is having few typos.

    var data = { Data: [{ duration: 5, end_date: "06-04-2013 00:00", id: 1, open: true, parentId: 0, progress: 0, start_date: "01-04-2013 00:00", test : "PcB ddCcgoMordiF Arr e" }], Links: [{Id : 1, Type: "sdsd"}] }

2. You have not marked the data members as properties with getters and setters.

    public class GanttRequestDto { public IEnumerable<GanttTaskDto> Data { get; set; } public IEnumerable<GanttLinkDto> Links { get; set; } }

Well try now and let me know if it works for you or not.