Question

I have a situation in an MVC3 app where I would like to be able to set the name attribute on some html being generated by a helper (DropDownList).

It appears this is not possible. Apparently the helpers silently override whatever value you may specify for the name attribute in the html attribute object that you pass to the helper.

I’d like to confirm that before I waste too much more time on trying to work with the existing helpers.

And, as an aside, if it is not possible by design…I think that’s a foolish limitation in the MVC framework. Yes, I know that assigning the wrong name attribute can break the automatic model binding. But I should be able to do that when I need to. After all, I can always write the raw html using whatever name attribute I chose. The helpers should help, not be a straitjacket.

Edit to discuss whether editor templates maintain navigational context

Darin, I am using editor templates (I was using the term “partial” generically, since editor templates are a special kind of partial view).

Editor templates do modify the HtmlFieldPrefix — that’s how I noticed I had a problem :). I was using a call like this:

// call in higher level partial - context is 'eae'
@Html.EditorFor(m => m.Value)
...
// inside editor template for typeof(Value) context is 'eae:Value'

That context shift is needed to keep the default binding mechanism working properly. I’m using a different approach, where I want the context to stay fixed throughout a call chain of partials (i.e., as execution burrows down into deeper partials I want the context to stay the same).

Answer 1

This is by design. The HTML helpers do not allow you to override the name attribute. They generate the name based on your view model so that the default model binder is able to properly bind the values according to the well established conventions when the form is submitted.

And, as an aside, if it is not possible by design…I think that’s a
foolish limitation in the MVC framework.

You could open a ticket on MS Connect and hope this could change in a future version of the framework. Until then you could also write your own custom helpers that will allow you to override the name attribute for the cases when you need such functionality. Personally I’ve never needed it so far but I am sure you have valid reasons. Another possibility is to write a custom model binder on the server.