mvc search page example with code

MVC Searh page with pagination: It’s very easy to create a search page in asp.net but when I try to create the same in MVC I faced many problems, how to create model, how to keep searched values in search controls, pagination, I found myself nowhere, so start searching for some good examples but whatever I found was not quite helpful so try my own. I will explain the same in this article.

Here is the result we will create in this article:

First of all we will create a model, so let’s write the code for search model

using PagedList;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

namespace MvcSearch.Models
{
    public class ProductSearchModel
    {
        public int? Page { get; set; }
        [Display(Name="Product")]
        public string ProductName { get; set; }
        public decimal? Price { get; set; }
        public IPagedList<Product> SearchResults { get; set; }
        public string SearchButton { get; set; }
    }
}

As you can see we added two name spaces PagedList and DataAnnotations. If you have not installed PagedList with your visual studio then Install it from NuGet PagedList according to your MVC version.

There are different version of PagedList so select the correct version from list and copy the command Go to view -> Other Windows -> Package Manager Console -> paste and press enter e.g. for latest version

 PM> Install-Package PagedList.Mvc

Now time to create our controller and action method, I created a new controller Product and action method Index, here is the code

public class ProductController : Controller
{
    const int RecordsPerPage = 5;

    //I am not using httpGet or httpPost because it will be used for both
    public ActionResult Index(ProductSearchModel model)
    {
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.SearchButton) || model.Page.HasValue)
        {
            var entities = new NorthwindEntities();
            var results = entities.Products
                .Where(p=> (p.ProductName.StartsWith(model.ProductName) 
                            || model.ProductName == null)
                && (p.Price > model.Price || model.Price == null))
                .OrderBy(p => p.ProductName);

            var pageIndex = model.Page ?? 1;
            model.SearchResults = results.ToPagedList(pageIndex, RecordsPerPage);
        }
        return View(model);
    }
}

You can change Records Per Page value, I used 5 so I can see the paging at the bottom.

And finally here is the code for our view

@model MvcSearch.Models.ProductSearchModel
@using PagedList.Mvc;

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Index";
    Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml";
}

 @using (Html.BeginForm("Index", "Product", FormMethod.Get))
 {
    @Html.ValidationSummary(false)
    <div style="border-bottom:1px solid #bbb"><h1>Search Product</h1></div> 
    <table style="border:0px; width:500px;">
        <tr>
            <td>
                <div class="editor-label">
                    @Html.LabelFor(model => model.ProductName)
                </div>

                <div class="editor-field">
                    @Html.EditorFor(model => model.ProductName)
                    @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.ProductName)
                </div>                 
            </td>
            <td>                
                <div class="editor-label">
                    @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Price)
                </div>

                <div class="editor-field">
                    @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Price)
                    @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Price)
                </div>
            </td>
            <td style="vertical-align:bottom;">                    
                <input name="SearchButton" type="submit" value="Search" />
            </td>
        </tr>
    </table>

     if (Model.SearchResults != null && Model.SearchResults.Count > 0)
     {
        <table class="table" style=" width:500px;">
            <tr>
                <th>ID</th>
                <th>Product</th>
                <th>Product Name</th>
                <th>Price</th>
                <th>Reorder Level</th>
            </tr>
         @foreach (var product in Model.SearchResults)
         {
             <tr>
                <td>@product.ProductId</td>
                <td>@product.ProductName</td>
                <td>@product.Qunatity</td>
                <td>@product.Price</td>
                <td>@product.ReorderLevel</td>
            </tr>
         }        
        </table>
        @Html.PagedListPager(Model.SearchResults, 
          page => Url.Action("Index", new RouteValueDictionary() 
          {
               { "Page", page },
               { "ProductName", Model.ProductName },
               { "Price", Model.Price }
          }),
          PagedListRenderOptions.PageNumbersOnly)
     }
 }

I used entity framework which is not needed to discuss, I hope you are expert in it, otherwise this article will be quire long.

If you are looking for a solution to search on the basis of multiple fields see MVC multiple field search with webgrid - Step 5

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