asp.net mvc - Can I pass a parameter with the OnSuccess event in a Ajax.ActionLink

Question

When I use:

new AjaxOptions
{
  UpdateTargetId = "VoteCount" + indx,
  OnSuccess = "AnimateVoteMessage"
}

everything works fine...but I am trying to animate items in a list, with automatically assigned ID's. Since I want each of these to be addressable from my javascript, I believe I need to pass a parameter to my javascript. But when I use:

new AjaxOptions
{ 
  UpdateTargetId = "VoteCount" + indx,
  OnSuccess = "AnimateVoteMessage(2)"
}

I get an " Sys.ArgumentUndefinedException: Value cannot be undefined." exception. Well I get that when using the debug versions of MicrosoftMvcAjax.js. When using the compressed version I get a "Microsoft JScript runtime error: 'b' is null or not an object"

So my question is, can I pass a parameter to my javascript function using the OnSuccess event for a ActionLink?

Is this the right approach? How else am I going to have one javascript function have the ability to be run on 10 items (in my case the IDs of multiple DIVs) on my page?

Answer 1

There is a better way to do this - use the built in parameters that the OnSuccess call can be expected to pass

the built in parameters (the ones I found so far anyway) are data, status and xhr

data = whatever you return from the action method

status = if successful this status is just a string that says "success"

xhr = object that points to a bunch of javascript stuff that I will not be discussing...

so you would define your javascript like this (you can leave out the arguments you don't need - since all we want is our data back from the action we will just take the data argument)

function myOnSuccessFunction (data)
{
   ..do stuff here with the passed in data...
}

like I said before, data is whatever JSON that may be returned by the ActionResult so if your controller action method looks like this...

public ActionResult MyServerAction(Guid modelId)
{
   MyModel mod = new MyModel(modelId);

   mod.DoStuff();

   return Json(mod, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}

you would set up your action link like this...

@Ajax.ActionLink("Do Stuff", "MyServerAction", new { modelId = Model.Id }, new     AjaxOptions { OnSuccess = "mySuccessScript(data);", OnFailure = "myFailureScript();", Confirm = "Are you sure you want to do stuff on the server?" })

this will create a confirmation message box asking if you want to actually invoke the action - clicking yes on the prompt will invoke the call to the controller - when the call comes back - the data argument will contain a JSON object of whatever you returned in your action method. Easy Peasy!

But wait! What if I want to pass another custom argument?! Simple! Just add your arguments to the front of the list...

instead of this...

function myOnSuccessFunction (data)
{
   ..do stuff here with the passed in data...
}

do this (you can have more than one custom argument if you like, just keep adding them as needed)...

function myOnSuccessFunction (myCustomArg, data)
{
   ..do stuff here with the passed in data and custom args...
}

then in your setup - just get the argument through some client side script within your ActionLink definition... i.e.

@Ajax.ActionLink("DoStuff", "MyServerAction", new { modelId = Model.Id }, new AjaxOptions { OnSuccess = "mySuccessScript(myClientSideArg, data);", OnFailure = "myFailureScript();", Confirm = "Are you sure you want to do stuff on the server?" })

Note that "myClientSideArg" in the OnSuccess parameter can come from wherever you need it to - just replace this text with what you need.

Hope That Helps!