MVC 5 get value of DropDownList within a table row - asp.net-mvc-5

Question

I have a view with a table of products that can be added to a shopping cart. Each row has a DropDownList with allowed quantities that can be ordered along with a button to add to cart. Everything is populating and displaying properly. I know how to pass the item ID in the ActionLink but how can I get the value of the DownDownList associated with the table row of the ActionLink that was clicked?
I am guessing possibly using JQuery that fires when the ActionLink is clicked?
I also thought of making every row a form but that seems overkill.
Is there an easy MVC way to do this?

Answer 1

In prepping more info for a proper question and went ahead and solved it. Thank you Stephen for the nudge and info.
I tried putting a Html.BeginForm around each <tr> tag in the details section. This did indeed work for me. I was able to easily get the unique form info to POST for each individual row. However, when I would enable JQuery DataTables the submit would break. DataTables must be capturing the submit or click somehow. Haven't figured that out but it made me try JQuery which seems a much better way to do it.
Here is how I construct the table data row:
#foreach (var item in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>
<img src="#item.GetFrontImage()" width="100" />
</td>
<td>
<strong>#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.DisplayName)</strong>
</td>
<td>
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.CustomerSKU)
</td>
<td>
#Html.DropDownList("OrderQty", item.GetAllowedOrderQuantities(), htmlAttributes: new { #class = "form-control" })
</td>
<td>
<a class="btn btn-default pull-right" data-id="#item.ID">Add to Cart</a>
</td>
</tr>
}
This creates a select with id of OrderQty and I embedded the item ID in data-id attribute of the link. I then used this JQuery to capture the info and POST it to my controller. Just have a test div displaying the results in this example:
// Add to Cart click
$('table .btn').click(function () {
// Gather data for post
var dataAddToCard = {
ID: $(this).data('id'), // Get data-id attribute (Item ID)
Quantity: $(this).parent().parent().find('select').val() // Get selected value of dropdown in same row as button that was clicked
}
// POST data to controller
$.ajax({
url: '#Url.Action("AddToCart","Shopping")',
type: 'POST',
data: JSON.stringify(dataAddToCard),
contentType: 'application/json',
success: function (data) { $('#Result').html(data.ID + ' ' + data.Quantity); }
})
});
The JQuery function receives the reference to the link being clicked so I can extract the Item ID from the data-id attribute. I can then get a reference to the dropdown (select) that is in the same row by using .parent.parent (gets me to the <tr> tag) and then just finding the next 'select' tag. Probably pretty obvious to a lot of you.
This works great for my purposes. I can also update other elements with data returned from the POST.
Thank you
Karl

Answer 2

for the table in html:
<div class="table-responsive">
<table id="employeeTable"class="table table-bordered">
<thead>
<tr>
<th class="text-center">ُُُEmpId</th>
<th class="text-center">Name</th>
<th class="text-center">Absense State</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
#foreach (var item in Model)
{
<tr>
<td>#item.Id</td>
<td>#item.Name</td>
<td class="text-center">#Html.DropDownList("DDL_AbsentStatus", new SelectList(ViewBag.statusList, "Id", "Name"), new { #class = "form-control text-center" })</td>
</tr>
}
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
in javascript to get the selected value:
//Collect Date For Pass To Controller
$("#btn_save").click(function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
if ($.trim($("#datepicker1").val()) == "") {
alert("ادخل تاريخ يوم صحيح!")
return;
}
var employeesArr = [];
employeesArr.length = 0;
$.each($("#employeeTable tbody tr"), function () {
employeesArr.push({
EmpId: $(this).find('td:eq(0)').html(),
EntryDate: $.trim($("#datepicker1").val()),
StatusId: $(this).find('#DDL_AbsentStatus').val()
});
});
$.ajax({
url: '/Home/SaveAbsentState',
type: "POST",
dataType: "json",
data: JSON.stringify(employeesArr),
contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8',
success: function (result) {
alert(result);
emptyItems();
},
error: function (err) {
alert(err.statusText);
}
});
})