Can I reduce razor code to just few lines?

Question

Can I reduce this razor code?

    <li>
    @{
        if (@Model.PublicationDate.HasValue) {
            @Model.PublicationDate.Value.ToString("D", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("fr-FR")) 
        }
        else {
            @:"pas disponible"
        }
    }
    </li>

I was trying this but it doesn't work:

@{(@Model.PublicationDate.HasValue) ? (@Model.PublicationDate.Value.ToString("D")) : (@:"pas disponible")}

Answer 1

You could decorate your view model property with the [DisplayFormat] attribute:

[DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:D}", NullDisplayText = "pas disponible")]
public DateTime? PublicationDate { get; set; }

and then your view simply becomes:

<li>
    @Html.DisplayFor(x => x.PublicationDate)
</li>

So now it is reduced to a single and elegant line.