Understanding [HttpPost], [HttpGet] and Complex Actionmethod parameters in MVC

Question

I am very very new to MVC the design-pattern and also the Framework. I am also not extremely well- versed in fundamentals of ASP.NET Forms. However, I do understand the basi

Answer 1

Best Practice - Request handling

It is best practice to only use public methods in your controller which are going to be serviced either with a view or with json. For all public methods in your controller, it is best practice to either mark them with an [HttpGet] or an [HttpPost], or one of the other types which I wont cover as they are more edge case scenario.

These Http attributes restrict the method to only servicing those specific types of requests. While the default is [HttpGet], I have found that not marking [HttpGet] in all scenarios can at times lead to unexpected behavior when there are naming conflicts.

Best Practice - PRG

Post-Redirect-Get is a design pattern which essentially stipulates that any time you are going to be sending a response which came from a POST request, you should redirect to a get in order to send the response. This protects from a number of scenarios, including not posting again if the back button is used.

The redirect usually comes in the form of the [HttpPost] ActionResult using return RedirectToAction("MyHttpGetAction");.

Posting complex models

There are multiple ways which you can send a complex model. The main difference is that if you are using a GET request it is in the url, and if you are using a POST request it is in the request headers. If you use ajax then the difference becomes blurred as you will almost always send it in the body.