MVC 4 Binding to a dictionary

Question

I have looked around on the Internet, but none of the solutions seem to work for me.

I have the following view model:

public class ConfigsViewModel
{
    // iOS Dictionary
    public Dictionary<string, object> IosDictionary { get; set; }   

    // Android Dictionary
    public Dictionary<string, object> AndroidDictionary { get; set; } 
}

The values in these dictionaries are either bool or strings. I want to display a table like editing view, and I want to bind these dictionaries. My view looks like this:

@model MobileRebrandingTool.Models.ViewModels.ConfigsViewModel

<div>
    @using (Html.BeginForm("SaveAppConfig", "Project", "POST"))
    {
        <table class="config-table">
            <tr>
                <th></th>
                <th>iOS</th>
                <th>Android</th>
            </tr>
            @foreach (var kvp in Model.IosDictionary)
            {
                <tr>
                    <td>
                        @kvp.Key
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        @Html.EditorFor(model => model.IosDictionary[kvp.Key])
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        @if (Model.AndroidDictionary.ContainsKey(kvp.Key))
                        {
                            @Html.EditorFor(model => model.AndroidDictionary[kvp.Key])
                        }
                    </td>
                </tr>
            }
        </table>
        <input type="submit" value="Save"/>    
    }
</div>

The problem is that in SaveAppConfig action, when I check the model, instead of a string as value for the keys in the dictionaries, the value is an array of one string (the value in the text input). In the dictionaries I have as values bools and strings, so I cannot use TextBoxFor. Is there a better way to bind the dictionaries? Should I write a custom binder? And if so, how should it look like?

Thank you,

Cosmin

Answer 1

Since you are in the foreach you need to pull the value a little differently

@foreach(var kvp in Model.IosDictionary){
    @Html.EditorFor(model => model.IosDictionary[kvp.Key])
}

should be something like

@foreach(var kvp in Model.IosDictionary){
    @Html.EditorFor(model => kvp.Value)
}

I am not 100% sure you can do kvp.Value. Looked up iterating through a dictionary and found this What is the best way to iterate over a Dictionary in C#?