ASP.net MVC wont deserialize a class in http post

Question

I have this controller:

public JsonResult Register(string step , GlobalOnBoardingDataModel data){}

the MVC wont deserialize the data variable. The step variable is getting the post var into it.

I have other classes that are been deserialized fine, but this one won't. this is the class:

public class GlobalOnBoardingDataModel : BaseStepDataModel
    {
        public string Email = string.Empty;
        public string FirstName = string.Empty;
        public string LastName = string.Empty;
        public string PhoneAreaCode = string.Empty;
        public string PhoneCountryCode = string.Empty;
        public string PhoneNumber = string.Empty;
        public string CountryShortName = string.Empty;
        public string AccountCurrency = string.Empty;
        public float InitialDepositAmount = 0;
        public string Address = string.Empty;
        public string City = string.Empty;
        public string State = string.Empty;
        public string DateOfBirth = string.Empty;
        public string CreditCardNumber = string.Empty;
        public string CreditCardExperationDate = string.Empty;
        public bool RiskDisclosure = false;
        public bool Beneficiary = false;
        public string CVVNumber = string.Empty;
        public bool Subscribe = false;
    }

BTW, The location of the var is not an issue, seccond place working with other cases.

Edit these are the values (from chrome):

step:one
FirstName:kjh
LastName:
CountryShortName:IL
PhoneNumber:
PhoneAreaCode:
PhoneCountryCode:
Email:Test@test.com

Thanks

Answer 1

Assuming the post body is correct; you need to rewrite the fields and turn them in to public get/set properties.

MVC won't model bind to fields.

Since you wish to have non-default defaults for your members; you can use a default ctor to set the property defaults on construction; although I would prefer the approach that doesn't use auto-implemented properties instead:

private string _email = string.Empty; 
public string Email { get { return _email; } set { _email = value } } 

In reality, I suppose there's little difference at runtime - but if you use the constructor approach it's very easy to forget adding a new default to it when adding a new property.

MVC won't bind to fields ultimately because it uses the System.ComponentModel.TypeDescriptor class, in a round-about way, to get the metadata used to identify model properties that are to be bound. This isn't a bug, though, it's by design and is a good design choice as it enables mechanisms other than reflection the ability to be used in describing model types.