Two razor generated form checkboxes returning different values when checked; why?

Question

I'm working on modifying Controller logic for two an MVC/Razor generated forms. While debugging my code in order to confirm that my new code is doing what I expected it to do I noticed the following inconsistent behavior.

Form1 defined in Form1.cshtml with ActionResult1 contains a checkbox generated using

@Html.CheckBoxFor(model => model.AttributeName, new Dictionary<string, object>() { { "onclick", "this.checked=!this.checked;" } })

Form2 defined in Form2.cshtml with ActionResult2 contains a checkbox generated using

@Html.CheckBoxFor(model => model.AttributeName)

They both share the same Controller but separate ActionResult methods. The troubling behavior is observed when I submit each form:

When both checkboxes are checked:

When I use the debugging console to see the value for the checkbox in Form1 using formCollection.GetValue("AttributeName") I see that it contains the string "true,false" therefore returning true when I perform the following convert
```
Model.AttributeName=(bool)formCollection.GetValue("AttributeName").ConvertTo(typeof(bool))
```
When I use the debugging console to see the value for the checkbox in Form2 using formCollection.GetValue("AttributeName") I see that it contains the string "false,true" therefore returning false when I perform the following convert
```
Model.AttributeName= (bool)formCollection.GetValue("AttributeName").ConvertTo(typeof(bool))`
```

Assuming both checkboxes are NOT checked:
- Both forms Form1 and Form2 return the string "false"

This inconsistent behavior is giving me a hard time because I have both ActionResult1 and ActionResult2 use the same following logic after I cast and assign the boolean to Model.AttributeName:

if (Model.AttributeName){ ModelState.AddModelError("AttributeName", "Checkbox is required."); }

Please help.

JESTech · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-13 20:58:05Z

The problem was that both forms were not exactly identically coded in terms of their HTML helpers:

Form1 was declared using strictly HTML helpers inside its enclosing container. Something like this:

...
<li  data-role="fieldcontain">
@Html.CheckBoxFor(model => model.AttributeName,...
@Html.LabelFor(model => model.AttributeName, "Checkbox Label String")
<br/>
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.AttributeName)
</li>
...

Form2 was declared using a mix of HTML AND helpers inside its enclosing container. Something like this:

...
<li  data-role="fieldcontain">
<label>
<span style="float: left;">Checkbox Label String.</span>
@Html.CheckBoxFor(model => model.AttributeName)
<br/>
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.AttributeName)
</label>
</li>
...

Apparently it makes a difference, and in fact mixes up the way Razor handles the form if I decide to hard-code the label rather than using the @Html.LabelFor(... helper. Once I replicated Form1's structure in Form2 they both started returning the same values ("false" for not checked, "true,false" when checked).

Therefore assigning the right boolean accordignly; True for

Model.AttributeName=(bool)formCollection.GetValue("AttributeName").ConvertTo(typeof(bool))

when checked. False when not.

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