Question

When using DataAnnotations.Display attribute combined with localized strings, the syntax which is used is the following:

public class Customer
{
    [Display(ResourceType = typeof(DisplayResources), Name = "LName")]
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

Source: MSDN.

Apparently, the following syntax is impossible:

public class Customer
{
    [Display(Name = DisplayResources.LName)]
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

since it results in the following compile error:

An attribute argument must be a constant expression, typeof expression or array creation expression of an attribute parameter type

What else I can do to avoid passing variables by their names through a string? Is there a way to avoid stringly-typed code?

Answer 1

there is an article form ex-Telerik member Kazi Manzur Rashid. Localization with ASP.NET MVC ModelMetadata. He is explaining there how to use nice framework MvcExtensions (help articles)

Here is an example:

public class ProductEditModelConfiguration : ModelMetadataConfiguration<ProductEditModel>
{
    public ProductEditModelConfiguration()
    {
        Configure(model => model.Id).Hide();

        Configure(model => model.Name).DisplayName(() => LocalizedTexts.Name)
            .Required(() => LocalizedTexts.NameCannotBeBlank)
            .MaximumLength(64, () => LocalizedTexts.NameCannotBeMoreThanSixtyFourCharacters);

        Configure(model => model.Category).DisplayName(() => LocalizedTexts.Category)
            .Required(() => LocalizedTexts.CategoryMustBeSelected)
            .AsDropDownList("categories", () => LocalizedTexts.SelectCategory);

        Configure(model => model.Price).DisplayName(() => LocalizedTexts.Price)
            .FormatAsCurrency()
            .Required(() => LocalizedTexts.PriceCannotBeBlank)
            .Range(10.00m, 1000.00m, () => LocalizedTexts.PriceMustBeBetweenTenToThousand);
    }
}