Why does normal markup inside an @Using Html.BeginForm need an @?

Question

related: MVC3 Razor using Html.BeginForm problem

When I make an HTML form for MVC 3/VB with the Razor engine, I would expect to be able to do it like this:

@Using Html.BeginForm("Action", "Controller")
    <fieldset>
        @* Other form code and values *@
    </fieldset>
End Using

But if I do that I get "BC32035: Attribute specifier is not a complete statement. Use a line continuation to apply the attribute to the following statement." I need to add an @ character before the opening tag to avoid this error. Can someone explain why?

Matthew Abbott · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-19 11:23:11Z

3

When using Razor with C#, what you describe is possible, because parser can determine the transition from code to markup because of the explicit '<' characters in html is not a valid C# token. VB.NET supports inline XML directly in code, so the Razor parser cannot determine that you have transitioned back to markup, so you have to be more explicit.

answered Apr 19, 2012 at 11:23

Matthew Abbott

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Amalea · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-19 10:07:43Z

3

I believe in Razor beginform should be like this, ie with curly braces:

@using (Html.BeginForm())
{
    @* Other code here *@
}

answered Apr 19, 2012 at 10:07

Amalea

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Michael Buen · Accepted Answer · 2012-04-19 11:19:50Z

3

I don't use VB.NET, but I think you should do this:

@Using Html.BeginForm("Action", "Controller")
    @:<fieldset>
        @* Other form code and values *@
    @:</fieldset>
End Using

With VB.NET's first-class supports for XML, it treats tags as XML, hence it treats fieldset(any HTML tags for that matter) as XML too; and XML as being part of language of VB.NET, it will run counter to Razor's parser

A quick trip on VS2010 using ASP.NET MVC for VB.NET, this would suffice:

@Using Html.BeginForm("Action", "Controller")
    @<fieldset>
        @* Other form code and values *@
    </fieldset>
End Using

VB.NET's language literal XML support run afoul of Razor's parser, just prevent it with adding extra @ or @:

edited Apr 19, 2012 at 11:19

answered Apr 19, 2012 at 11:12

Michael Buen

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3 Comments

just.another.programmer Over a year ago

What does the extra @ or @: do in that code? Is it some kind of escape character?

Michael Buen Over a year ago

More or less yes. It signals razor that you are escaping from programming language's (e.g. C#, VB.NET) syntax. There's no extra nudging needed for C#, as the symbol < is not used by it, and as such, Razor can also use the < as an escaper for C#; there's no such privilege in VB.NET, in VB.NET, anything that starts with < is an XML literal, so for this kind of scenario, you need to use Razor's @ to escape the VB.NET's syntax

Michael Buen Over a year ago

Another example of Razor's nuance: ienablemuch.com/2011/08/razor-tag-nuances.html

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:32:55Z

1

For multi-line support, as pointed out in Using in Razor VB.net MVC not work as expected, you can use @<text>...</text> to switch back to "text mode" and output html like this:

@Using Html.BeginForm("Action", "Controller")
    @<text>
      <fieldset>
        * Other form code and values *
      </fieldset>
    </text>
End Using

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:32

CommunityBot

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answered Nov 10, 2014 at 21:57

KyleMit♦

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