Question

I want to create an extension method for HtmlHelper that allows me to create a LabelFor a property display an asterisk after it if it is a required field. How can I do that?

public class Foo
{
    [Required]
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Html.LabelFor(o => o.Name) // Name*

Answer 1

Here is an blog post that describes how to do this.

To give you a small example modified from the site above (note – I have not compiled/tested this):

namespace HelpRequest.Controllers.Helpers
{
   public static class LabelExtensions
    {
        public static MvcHtmlString Label(this HtmlHelper html, string expression, string id = "", bool generatedId = false)
        {
            return LabelHelper(html, ModelMetadata.FromStringExpression(expression, html.ViewData), expression, id, generatedId);
        }

        [SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design", "CA1006:DoNotNestGenericTypesInMemberSignatures", Justification = "This is an appropriate nesting of generic types")]
        public static MvcHtmlString LabelFor<TModel, TValue>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> html, Expression<Func<TModel, TValue>> expression, string id = "", bool generatedId = false)
        {
            return LabelHelper(html, ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression(expression, html.ViewData), ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(expression), id, generatedId);
        }

        internal static MvcHtmlString LabelHelper(HtmlHelper html, ModelMetadata metadata, string htmlFieldName, string id, bool generatedId)
        {
            string labelText = metadata.DisplayName ?? metadata.PropertyName ?? htmlFieldName.Split('.').Last();
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(labelText))
            {
                return MvcHtmlString.Empty;
            }
            var sb = new StringBuilder();
            sb.Append(labelText);
            if (metadata.IsRequired)
                sb.Append("*");

            var tag = new TagBuilder("label");
            if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id))
            {
                tag.Attributes.Add("id", id);
            }
            else if (generatedId)
            {
                tag.Attributes.Add("id", html.ViewContext.ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldId(htmlFieldName) + "_Label");
            }

            tag.Attributes.Add("for", html.ViewContext.ViewData.TemplateInfo.GetFullHtmlFieldId(htmlFieldName));
            tag.SetInnerText(sb.ToString());

            return MvcHtmlString.Create(tag.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal));
        }
    }
}