ASP.NET MVC - Trouble passing model in Html.ActionLink routeValues

Question

My View looks like this:

<%@ Control Language=\"C#\" 
    Inherits=\"System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl

        

Answer 1

You can't pass complex objects:

new
{
    model = Model,
    sortBy = "EffectiveStartDate",
},

model = Model makes no sense and cannot be sent using GET. You might need to use a form with an editor template and/or hidden fields to send all the model properties. Remember only scalar values can be sent in the query string (key1=value1&key2=value2...). Another alternative that comes to mind is to send only the ID:

new
{
    modelId = Model.Id,
    sortBy = "EffectiveStartDate",
},

and in your controller action fetch the model given this id from your data store:

public ActionResult SortDetails(int modelId, String sortBy)
{
    var model = repository.GetModel(modelId);
    ...
}

Of course this is only true if the user is not supposed to edit the model properties in a form. Depends on your scenario.

And for the sake of completeness let me expose another option: use the Html.Serialize helper from MVC Futures to serialize the entire model into a hidden field which could be passed back to the controller action and deserialized there.