MVC3 Razor ViewData

Question

I have an online form. for example it asks for first name and last name. When they submit I send them to another view. this second view has a few more textboxes (password, email address, username) it also has first name and last name though. If they fill out the first form and fill in firstname/lastname i want the second form to display these values since they have already been filled in.

in the first form I am putting all the filled out information into TempData["entry"]

in the second form i am doing this check.

        if (TempData["entry"] != null)
        {
            var _model = (AccountInformationModel)TempData["entry"];

            ViewData["_firstName"] = _model.NameFirst;
            ViewData["_lastName"] = _model.NameLast;
        }

        return View("Register");

i guess in my view im a bit confused on how to display this data in a textbox. I have this in my view but it doesnt seem to be working.

       <div class="editor-label">
            @Html.LabelFor(m => m.FirstName)
        </div>
        <div class="editor-field">
            @Html.TextBox("FirstName", ViewData["FirstName"])
            @Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => m.FirstName)
        </div>

clearly the line that says...

   @Html.TextBox("FirstName", ViewData["FirstName"])

doesnt work..

Answer 1

You're assigning the value to "_firstName"

ViewData["_firstName"] = _model.NameFirst;

And then trying to display "FirstName"

@Html.TextBox("FirstName", ViewData["FirstName"])

Try changing it to:

@Html.TextBox("FirstName", ViewData["_firstName"])

The other way to do this to avoid mistakes like this is to define a new class that will contain all your view data keys. This way your strings are contained in one location, making maintenance and changes easier.

public static class ViewDataKeys
{
    public const string FirstName = "_firstName";
}

Then when you want to access it, you can use

ViewData[ViewDataKeys.FirstName] = _model.NameFirst;