ASP.NET MVC form element name generation

Question

I have a class that looks like this:

public class UserListVM
{
    public SearchModel SearchModel { get; set; }
    public PagedList<User> Users { get; set; }
}

public class SearchModel
{
    public string Text { get; set; }
    /* other properties */
}

I send UserListVM to my view but the action accepts SearchModel:

public ActionResult Search(SearchModel filter)
{
        UserListVM model = new UserListVM();

        model.Users = userService.GetUsers(filter);
        model.SearchModel = filter;

        return View(model);
}

My view is:

@model UserListVM 

<form>
    @Html.TextBoxFor(m => Model.SearchModel.Text)
</form>

But this generates:

<input id="SearchModel_Text" name="SearchModel.Text" type="text" value="">

Which sends UserListVM to the action instead of SearchModel. How can I get it to generate this:

<input id="Text" name="Text" type="text" value="">

Why are you passing a UserListVM to the view when it needs a SearchModel? Your view doesn't use the anything but the SearchModel. — Erik Funkenbusch
– Erik Funkenbusch, Commented Feb 15, 2012 at 23:22

score 2 · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-16 03:04:57Z

2

@Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.SearchModel.Text, new { id = "Text" })

Utilize the overloaded TextBoxFor() method that takes a second object parameter (called htmlAttributes). Here you can specify HTML attributes to apply to the DOM element you are currently utilizing (in this case, your input element).

Edit: I believe your lambda expression is wrong. Change:

@Html.TextBoxFor(m => Model.SearchModel.Text)

To

@Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.SearchModel.Text)
// htmlAttributes omitted to show the issue

Edit Edit: it turns out that even with a specified name attribute, it will be rendered according to what the form is requiring for a POST to the necessary field(s).

Edit Edit Edit: Try to be explicit with FormExtensions.BeginForm():

@using (Html.BeginForm("Search", "YourController", FormMethod.Post, null))
{
    @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.SearchModel.Text)
}

Use this as a substite of your <form /> element.

edited Feb 16, 2012 at 3:04

answered Feb 15, 2012 at 21:50

user596075

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5 Comments

Shawn Mclean Over a year ago

With LabelFor, I need to give the Id to it as a string?

user596075 Over a year ago

@Lolcoder If I am understanding your question correctly, then yes. Think of that object (htmlAttributes) as a direct way to set values for HTML element attributes.

Shawn Mclean Over a year ago

When I tried this, only the id was changed, somehow the name didn't get overridden.

user596075 Over a year ago

@Lolcoder Oh, I see that as well. I think this probably has to do with MVC overriding that. It has to be generated as "SearchModel.Text" so that it is bound to your Model.

user596075 Over a year ago

@Lolcoder I think you have a deeper underlying problem. See my edit. Instead of your lambda expression being m => Model.SearchModel.Text, it needs to be m => m.SearchModel.Text. Try that out and see if that fixes your problem.

Oved D · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-15 22:11:35Z

2

Create a partial view for your SearchModel, and call it using Html.Partial. Then, from within that partial view, do all of the EditorFor/TextBoxFor Extensions

Your view - UserList.cshtml:

@model UserListVM

@using (Html.BeginForm())
{
    @Html.Partial("Search", Model.SearchModel)
}

Your view - Search.cshtml:

@model SearchModel

@Html.TextAreaFor(m => m.Text)

answered Feb 15, 2012 at 22:11

Oved D

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Comments

Erik Funkenbusch · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-15 23:33:10Z

0

Assumming there is more the the View than you have shown, why not just have your Search method take the UserListVM model. It will just contain a null reference to the users, so there is no extra data sent in the post.

answered Feb 15, 2012 at 23:33

Erik Funkenbusch

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Comments

Shawn Mclean · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-17 14:30:38Z

0

Try doing it manually like this:

@Html.TextBox("Text", Model.SearchModel.Text)

answered Feb 17, 2012 at 14:30

Shawn Mclean

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