Wondering why DisplayName attribute is ignored in LabelFor on an overridden property
- by Lasse Krantz
Hi,
today I got confused when doing a couple of <%=Html.LabelFor(m=>m.MyProperty)%> in ASP.NET MVC 2 and using the [DisplayName("Show this instead of MyProperty")] attribute from System.ComponentModel.
As it turned out, when I put the attribute on an overridden property, LabelFor didn't seem to notice it.
However, the [Required] attribute works fine on the overridden property, and the generated errormessage actually uses the DisplayNameAttribute.
This is some trivial examplecode, the more realistic scenario is that I have a databasemodel separate from the viewmodel, but for convenience, I'd like to inherit from the databasemodel, add View-only properties and decorating the viewmodel with the attributes for the UI.
public class POCOWithoutDataAnnotations
{
public virtual string PleaseOverrideMe { get; set; }
}
public class EditModel : POCOWithoutDataAnnotations
{
[Required]
[DisplayName("This should be as label for please override me!")]
public override string PleaseOverrideMe
{
get { return base.PleaseOverrideMe; }
set { base.PleaseOverrideMe = value; }
}
[Required]
[DisplayName("This property exists only in EditModel")]
public string NonOverriddenProp { get; set; }
}
The strongly typed ViewPage<EditModel> contains:
<div class="editor-label">
<%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.PleaseOverrideMe) %>
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.PleaseOverrideMe) %>
<%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.PleaseOverrideMe) %>
</div>
<div class="editor-label">
<%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.NonOverriddenProp) %>
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
<%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.NonOverriddenProp) %>
<%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.NonOverriddenProp) %>
</div>
The labels are then displayed as "PleaseOverrideMe" (not using the DisplayNameAttribute) and "This property exists only in EditModel" (using the DisplayNameAttribute) when viewing the page.
If I post with empty values, triggering the validation with this ActionMethod:
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Edit(EditModel model)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
return View(model);
return View("Thanks");
}
the <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.PleaseOverrideMe) %> actually uses [DisplayName("This should be as label for please override me!")] attribute, and produces the default errortext "The This should be as label for please override me! field is required."
Would some friendly soul shed some light on this?
