How to passdata from View to Controller?

Question

I have a ViewModel like that:

    public class JobApplication
    {
        [Key]
        public int Id{ get; set; }
        [Required]
        public DateTime CreatedOn { get; set; }

        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(ApplyFormatInEditMode = true, DataFormatString = "{0:yyy-MM-dd}")]
        [Display(Name = "Edited on:")]
        public DateTime? EditedOn { get; set; }
        [DataType(DataType.Date)]
        [DisplayFormat(ApplyFormatInEditMode = true, DataFormatString = "{0:yyy-MM-dd}")]
        [Display(Name = "Deleted on:")]
        public DateTime? DeletedOn { get; set; }


        public User Applicant { get; set; }

        public JobOffer JobOffer { get; set; }

        public ApplicationStatus ApplicationStatus { get; set; }

        public string CvHandle { get; set; }
        public string AdditionalInformation { get; set; }
    }

The fields JobOffer and Applicant make it to the view correctly, so I can access them. However, I want to then pass them back to the [HttpPost] method in the Controller. So far I've tried using Hidden and HiddenFor :

@Html.Hidden("JobOffer", Model.JobOffer)
@Html.Hidden("Applicant", Model.Applicant)
@Html.HiddenFor(x => x.Applicant)
@Html.HiddenFor(x => x.JobOffer)

But those don't work - all other values are mapped correctly when they make it to the Controller's method, but those are still null . How can I pass those values correctly back to the Controller with Post?

Answer 1

It is better to store these values on server side, but if you indeed want to pass them through, you can use this format for each property of these objects:

@Html.HiddenFor(x => x.Applicant.Field1)
@Html.HiddenFor(x => x.Applicant.Field2)
@Html.HiddenFor(x => x.JobOffer.Field1)
@Html.HiddenFor(x => x.JobOffer.Field2)