How can I read in an edited textarea?

Question

I'm trying to get the new textarea value to read into my controller so that way I can store the new value in my SQl database.

View:

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "TRIO FAQ Edit";
}
<h2>@ViewBag.Title (@Html.ActionLink("Done", "FAQ", "Home"))</h2>
<a class="btn btn-primary" href="@Url.Action("FAQAdd","Home")">Create New</a>

<!-- Bootstrap FAQ - START -->
<div class="container">
    <br />
    @foreach (var item in Model)
    {
        var q = $"questfor{@item.QuestionID1}";
        var a = $"ansfor{@item.QuestionID1}";
        <form id='@string.Format("formfor{0}", @item.QuestionID1)' runat="server">
            <h4>Question:</h4>
            <textarea runat="server" name='@string.Format(q)' id='@string.Format(q)' style="max-height: 100px; height:100px; width: 100%;">@item.QuestionValue</textarea>
            <h4>Answer:</h4>
            <textarea runat="server" name='@string.Format(a)' id='@string.Format(a)' style="max-height: 100px; height:100px; width: 100%;">@item.AnswerValue</textarea>
            <br />
            <a class="btn btn-primary" href="@Url.Action("FAQDelete","Home", new { [email protected]})">Delete</a> 
            <a class="btn btn-primary" href="@Url.Action("FAQSaveEdit","Home", new { [email protected], question=q.Text})">Save</a>
            <br />
        </form>
    }
</div>`

`

Controller:

public ActionResult FAQSaveEdit(int value)
        {
            //my sqlconnection is fine, i dont want to share the value
            //SqlConnection c = new SqlConnection;
            c.Open();
            string gr = Request.Form[$"questfor{value}"].ToString();
            string gre = Request.Form[$"ansfor{value}"].ToString();

            SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand($"UPDATE FAQ SET Question={gr}, Answer={gre} WHERE QuestionID={value}", c);
            cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
            SqlCommand cmd2 = new SqlCommand("SELECT * FROM FAQ", c);
            var model = new List<Models.FAQEntry>();
            SqlDataReader rdr = cmd2.ExecuteReader();
            while (rdr.Read())
            {
                var faqent = new Models.FAQEntry();
                faqent.QuestionID1 = (int)rdr["QuestionID"];
                faqent.QuestionValue = (string)rdr["Question"];
                faqent.AnswerValue = (string)rdr["Answer"];
                model.Add(faqent);
            }
            c.Close();
            return View(model);
        }

Model:

namespace fproj.Models
{
    public class FAQEntry
    {
        public int QuestionID1 { get; set; }
        public string QuestionIDWord { get; set; }
        public string QuestionValue { get; set; }
        public string AnswerValue { get; set; }
    }
}

I've had no issues with adding and deleting entries, with the adding being a generic response. However, I'm not sure how to read the value when changed in a textarea. I've tried switching to input instead, but i keep getting warnings for one reason or another. .Text tells me it won't work with a string and .Form may return null when its not supposed to. Any advice would be helpful, as I've been at this for awhile. Thank you!

Answer 1

The textarea element has a 'value' property that is used to get the text inside. In your event handler, all you'd have to do is call textarea.value