Question

What is the best way to retrieve the display name attribute for an item in your model? I see a lot of people using the LabelFor helper for everything, but a label isn’t appropriate if I just want to list the data out. Is there an easy way just get the Name Attribute if I just want to print it out in, say a paragraph?

Answer 1

<p>
    <%= Html.Encode(
        ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression<YourViewModel, string>(
            x => x.SomeProperty, ViewData).DisplayName
    ) %>
<p>

Obviously in order to avoid the spaghetti code it is always a good idea to write a helper:

public static class HtmlExtensions
{
    public static MvcHtmlString GetDisplayName<TModel, TProperty>(
        this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, 
        Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression
    )
    {
        var metaData = ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression<TModel, TProperty>(expression, htmlHelper.ViewData);
        string value = metaData.DisplayName ?? (metaData.PropertyName ?? ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(expression));
        return MvcHtmlString.Create(value);
    }
}

And then:

<p>
    <%: Html.GetDisplayName(x => x.SomeProperty) %>
</p>