Problem with the MvcSerializer after updating from MVC2 to MVC3

Question

I use the helper Html.Serialize in one of my views, to serialize an object, and then I deserialize it again in my Controller using the MvcSerializer like this:

(RegistrationViewModel) new MvcSerializer().Deserialize(serializedObject);

This worked fine before, but after upgrading to MVC3 (And MVC3 Futures) The Deserialize method has changed so that it now has one more parameter: SerializationMode.

This I can set to either Signed or EncryptedAndSigned.

Regardless of which of these I use, I get an SerializationException asking me to verify that the data was serialized with the same mode I'm trying to deserialize with.

In my view, for some reason IntelliSense is not working for the Serialize method, so I don't know if this has gotten any additional overloads as well.

But the question is quite simply: How can I now, in MVC3, deserialize the data inside my controller that I have serialized inside the View with Html.Serialize?

EDIT - ADDED SOME CODE

From the Controller

private RegistrationViewModel registeredAccount;

protected override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
  var serialized = Request.Form["regData"];
  if (serialized != null)
  {
    registeredAccount = (RegistrationViewModel) new MvcSerializer().Deserialize(serialized, SerializationMode.EncryptedAndSigned);
    TryUpdateModel(registeredAccount); 
  }
  else
    registeredAccount = (RegistrationViewModel)TempData["regData"] ?? new RegistrationViewModel();
}

public ActionResult Index()
{
  if (Request.Form["nextButton.x"] != null)
    return RedirectToAction("Details");
  return View(registeredAccount);
}

From the view (The serialize call is at the start of the form)

@model VektNed.Models.RegistrationViewModel
...
<div class="BodyContainer RegistrationBody">
  @using (Html.BeginForm()){
    @Html.Serialize("regData", Model, SerializationMode.EncryptedAndSigned)
    <div class="RegistrationGroup">
      <p class="Description">e-posten din benyttes som brukernavn for å logge inn.</p>
      <p><label for="Account_Email">e-post</label> @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Account.Email)<span class="ErrorMessage"></span></p>
      <p><label for="RepeatEmail">gjenta e-post</label>  <input type="text" name="RepeatEmail" id="RepeatEmail" /><span class="ErrorMessage"></span></p>
      <p><label class="CheckboxLabel" for="ShareEmail">del din e-post med andre brukere. </label> @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Account.ShareEmail)</p>
    </div>
    <div class="RegistrationGroup">
      <p><label for="Account_FirstName">fornavn</label>  @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Account.FirstName)<span class="ErrorMessage"></span></p>
      <p><label for="Account_LastName">etternavn</label>  @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Account.LastName)<span class="ErrorMessage"></span></p>
    </div>
    <div class="RegistrationGroup">
      <p><label for="Password">ønsket passord</label>  @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Password)<span class="ErrorMessage"></span></p>
      <p><label for="ConfirmPassword">gjenta passord</label>  <input type="password" name="ConfirmPassword" id="ConfirmPassword" /><span class="ErrorMessage"></span></p>
    </div>
    <div class="RegistrationGroup">
      <input class="NextAlone" name="nextButton" type="image" src="../../Images/button_next.png" alt="Neste" />
    </div>
  }
</div>

...

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-27 09:29:24Z

2

Why are you manually deserializing your objects like this instead of using the [Deserialize] atrtribute:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index([Deserialize] RegistrationViewModel registrationModel)
{
    ...
}

As far as the second argument is concerned it must match the enum value you used when you serialized it in the view. So for example if in your view you did:

@Html.Serialize("registrationModel", SomeModel, SerializationMode.EncryptedAndSigned)

You would use:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Index([Deserialize(SerializationMode.EncryptedAndSigned)] RegistrationViewModel registrationModel)
{
    ...
}

or if you prefer manual labor:

var registrationModel = (RegistrationViewModel) new MvcSerializer()
    .Deserialize(serializedObject, SerializationMode.EncryptedAndSigned);

answered May 27, 2011 at 9:29

Darin Dimitrov

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2 Comments

Øyvind Bråthen Over a year ago

I'm doing the deserialization manually since it's not a parameter, but I get the object to deserialize from the Request.Form inside the OnActionExecuting method. I didn't get IntelliSense on the Serialize call do I didn't know about the variant that had the SerializationMode. However, even if I set the to the same value I get the same error message. I will post some code in an update to my question above. If you can see what is going wrong there I would be grateful.

Øyvind Bråthen Over a year ago

After the change, even if I got the same exception I got an inner exception now saying that the Property cannot be null. So then it is probably just down to a problem with the actual object that is being deserialized now. Then I should be able to fix the rest myself. Thanks a lot for your help.

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