Question

I’m writing my first asp.net mvc application and I have a question about custom Html helpers:

For making a form, you can use:

<% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%>    *stuff here* <% } %> 

I would like to do something similar with a custom HTML helper. In other words, I want to change:

Html.BeginTr(); Html.Td(day.Description); Html.EndTr(); 

into:

using Html.BeginTr(){     Html.Td(day.Description); } 

Is this possible?

Answer 1

Here is a possible reusable implementation in c# :

class DisposableHelper : IDisposable {     private Action end;      // When the object is created, write 'begin' function     public DisposableHelper(Action begin, Action end)     {         this.end = end;         begin();     }      // When the object is disposed (end of using block), write 'end' function     public void Dispose()     {         end();     } }  public static class DisposableExtensions {     public static IDisposable DisposableTr(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper)     {         return new DisposableHelper(             () => htmlHelper.BeginTr(),             () => htmlHelper.EndTr()         );     } } 

In this case, BeginTr and EndTr directly write in the response stream. If you use extension methods that return a string, you’ll have to output them using :

htmlHelper.ViewContext.HttpContext.Response.Write(s)