How to receive associative array data with 'FormCollection' in ASP.NET MVC3

Question

I have following data to send ajax call to the controller action:

var data = {
    "PersonalInfo": [
        {      
            "FirstName": "Leonel",
            "LastName": "Messi"     
        },
        {
            "FirstName": "Cristiano",
            "LastName": "Ronaldo" 
        }
    ]
};

Ajax call method:

$.ajax({
    url: "/Home/Create",
    type: "POST",
    dataType: "json",
    data: (JSON.parse(data)).PersonalInfo,
    success: function (response) { }                       
});

Controller Action:

public ActionResult Create(FormCollection formCollection)
{
    base.Create(formCollection);
}

In server side, I need array/list of FormCollection, e.g.:

formCollection[0] = {      
    "FirstName": "Leonel",
    "LastName": "Messi"     
}

formCollection[1] = {      
    "FirstName": "Cristiano",
    "LastName": "Ronaldo"      
}

Or something like following code so that I can call base.Create(formCollection) method multiple times for multiple personal info.

public ActionResult Create(List<FormCollection> formCollection)
{

}

But it is not possible, are there any alternative for this context?

Answer 1

Do you have to use formcollection?

Visual studio has a special menu option selection that can consume a JSON object and output a class that the modelbinder maps to. Copy your expected JSON result (data object).

Go to a class file, then go to visual studio's menu bar, Edit => Paste Special => Paste JSON as classes.

Use the resulting classes as the argument to your api controller action call and they should map.