How can I bind nested ViewModels from View to Controller in MVC3?

Question

I am developing an ASP.NET MVC 3 application in C# and I use Razor. I am now dealing with a problem concerning the binding of objects through ViewModels passed/received to/f

Answer 1

Don't write loops in a view. Use editor templates:

<strong>@Model.ContainerName</strong>
@using (Html.BeginForm()) 
{
    <fieldset>
        @Html.EditorFor(x => x.ItemData)
        <input type="submit" value="Save" />
    </fieldset>
}

and inside the corresponding editor template (~/Views/Shared/EditorTemplates/ItemPostModel.cshtml):

@model ItemPostModel
@Html.TextBox(x => x.ItemId)
@Html.TextBox(x => x.ItemName)
@Html.TextBox(x => x.ItemValue)

And in the controller action you might need to specify the prefix:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult UpdateItems(
    int containerId, 
    [Bind(Prefix = "ItemData")]ItemPostModel itemData
)
{
   //store itemData into repository
}

and that should be pretty much all. The editor template will take care of generating the proper input field names for the binding to work.