Question

I am getting following error:

Templates can be used only with field access, property access, single-dimension array index, or single-parameter custom indexer expressions.

When I try to use:

 @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem =>  Html.Raw(item.ChangesMade))

in my asp.net MVC 3 view.

Can you please suggest correct syntax ?

Answer 1

UPDATED
You can’t use the HTML.DisplayFor helper TEMPLATE with an HtmlString like that which is returned from Html.Raw.

Instead, assuming your item.ChangesMade contains raw HTML that is useful try just

@Html.Raw(modelItem => modelItem.ChangesMade)

OR (more likely) if ChangesMade is just a value then use the Html helper:

@Html.TextBox("NameOfTextbox", modelItem.ChangesMade)

The easiest way for simple properties is to use the Templated Helpers (EditorFor, TextboxFor, etc) because they will utilize any DataAnnotation attributes you’ve used in your model classes — especially important with built-in validation!

For example:

public class MyModelClass
{
    [Required("The name field is required")]
    public virtual string Name { get; set; }
}

So you could use the Templated Helper if item.ChangesMade is a simple type and can be expressed by a (Textbox, Checkbox, Textarea, etc).

@Html.EditorFor(modelItem => modelItem.ChangesMade);

You might also use in combination with built-in validation:

@Html.EditorFor(modelItem => modelItem.ChangesMade)
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(modelItem => modelItem.ChangesMade)

Hope that helps!