Get DisplayName Attribute without using LabelFor Helper in asp.net MVC
What is the best way to retrieve the display name attribute for an item in your model? I see a lot of people using the LabelFor helper for everything, but a label isn't appropriate if I just want to list the data out. Is there an easy way just get the Name Attribute if I just want to print it out in, say a paragraph?
<p>
<%= Html.Encode(
ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression<YourViewModel, string>(
x => x.SomeProperty, ViewData).DisplayName
) %>
<p>
Obviously in order to avoid the spaghetti code it is always a good idea to write a helper:
public static class HtmlExtensions
{
public static MvcHtmlString GetDisplayName<TModel, TProperty>(
this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper,
Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression
)
{
var metaData = ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression<TModel, TProperty>(expression, htmlHelper.ViewData);
string value = metaData.DisplayName ?? (metaData.PropertyName ?? ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(expression));
return MvcHtmlString.Create(value);
}
}
And then:
<p>
<%: Html.GetDisplayName(x => x.SomeProperty) %>
</p>
You should try new existing function :
<% Html.DisplayNameFor(m => m.YourProperty) %>
In my opinion you should use a string as a result type because otherwise you skip the encoding mechanism. Another point is that you need the DisplayName in some cases as a string (i.e. populate the columns in a WebGrid class).