Determine whether there are changes on a form when you click a submit button

You can compare the values with a simple if condition. Something like this:

if ((currentProfile.City != objprofiler.City) || (currentProfile.State != objprofiler.State)) { currentProfile.City = objprofiler.City; currentProfile.State = objprofiler.State; db.SaveChanges(); } 

Or use whatever logic you're trying to achieve, really. Whether you want to compare for each field individually, use a && instead of an ||, etc. The logic you want to implement is up to you. But you'd perform the comparison in an if statement.

Note also that you can use string.Equals() instead of just the == operator to compare strings with some more options, such as case sensitivity options and other useful things.

If the comparison gets more complex, you might also encapsulate it in the profile object itself. Perhaps by overriding .Equals(), though that has other implications when testing for equality. Maybe just a simple helper function:

public bool IsEqualTo(profile obj) { return this.City == obj.City && this.State == obj.State; } 

Then in the controller you can just use that method:

if (!currentProfile.IsEqualTo(objprofiler)) db.SaveChanges(); 

The way I typically handle this is by setting a 'dirty' flag any time a data change event occurs on any of the form's controls.

When the user comes to submit the form, I just check the state of the flag to see whether any changes need to be saved. This avoids having to compare all data to their previous states, which can be a nuisance if there are a lot of input controls on the form.

For example:

 bool isDirty; private void textBox_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Possible validation here SetDirty(true); } private void SetDirty(bool dirty) { // Possible global validation here isDirty = dirty; } private void Submit() { if(isDirty) { // Save logic } } 

This approach allows you to run any global validation logic whenever any data is changed.

Caveat: If a user makes a change then reverts it, the form will still submit the data.

On the client side you can check if the value has changed by running some js to compare the elements value to its initial value. Something like this.

function hasFormChanged() { //textboxes, textareas var els = document.querySelectorAll('input[type="text"], textarea, input[type="number"]'); for (i = 0; i < els.length; i++) { var el = els[i]; if (el.value !== el.defaultValue) { return true; } } //checkboxes and radios els = document.querySelectorAll('input[type="radio"], input[type="checkbox"]'); for (i = 0; i < els.length; i++) { var el = els[i]; if (el.checked !== el.defaultChecked) { return true; } } //select els = document.querySelectorAll('select'); for (i = 0; i < els.length; i++) { var el = els[i]; if (el.options[el.selectedIndex].value != '') { if (!el.options[el.selectedIndex].defaultSelected) { return true; } } } //if we get here then nothing must have changed return false; } 

and it that function return true indicating that something has changed you can set a hidden form value like this

 <input type="hidden" value="false" id="AnyUpdates" name="AnyUpdates"/> 

to true.

Then in your controller update read that field to determine if you need to do your db stuff.