How to bind view model property with different name

Question

Is there a way to make a reflection for a view model property as an element with different name and id values on the html side.

That is the main question of what I want to achieve. So the basic introduction for the question is like:

1- I have a view model (as an example) which created for a filter operation in view side.

public class FilterViewModel
{
    public string FilterParameter { get; set; }
}

2- I have a controller action which is created for GETting form values(here it is filter)

public ActionResult Index(FilterViewModel filter)
{
return View();
}

3- I have a view that a user can filter on some data and sends parameters via querystring over form submit.

@using (Html.BeginForm("Index", "Demo", FormMethod.Get))
{    
    @Html.LabelFor(model => model.FilterParameter)
    @Html.EditorFor(model => model.FilterParameter)
    <input type="submit" value="Do Filter" />
}

4- And what I want to see in rendered view output is

<form action="/Demo" method="get">
    <label for="fp">FilterParameter</label>
    <input id="fp" name="fp" type="text" />
    <input type="submit" value="Do Filter" />
</form>

5- And as a solution I want to modify my view model like this:

public class FilterViewModel
{
    [BindParameter("fp")]
    [BindParameter("filter")] // this one extra alias
    [BindParameter("param")] //this one extra alias
    public string FilterParameter { get; set; }
}

So the basic question is about BindAttribute but the usage of complex type properties. But also if there is a built in way of doing this is much better. Built-in pros:

1- Usage with TextBoxFor, EditorFor, LabelFor and other strongly typed view model helpers can understand and communicate better with each other.

2- Url routing support

3- No framework by desing problems :

In general, we recommend folks don’t write custom model binders because they’re difficult to get right and they’re rarely needed. The issue I’m discussing in this post might be one of those cases where it’s warranted.

Link of quote

And also after some research I found these useful works:

Binding model property with different name

One step upgrade of first link

Here some informative guide

Result: But none of them give me my problems exact solution. I am looking for a strongly typed solution for this problem. Of course if you know any other way to go, please share.

---

Update

The underlying reasons why I want to do this are basically:

1- Everytime I want to change the html control name then I have to change PropertyName at compile time. (There is a difference Changing a property name between changing a string in code)

2- I want to hide (camouflage) real property names from end users. Most of times View Model property names same as mapped Entity Objects property names. (For developer readability reasons)

3- I don't want to remove the readability for developer. Think about lots of properties with like 2-3 character long and with mo meanings.

4- There are lots of view models written. So changing their names are going to take more time than this solution.

5- This is going to be better solution (in my POV) than others which are described in other questions until now.

Answer 1

Actually, there is a way to do it.

In ASP.NET binding metadata gathered by TypeDescriptor, not by reflection directly. To be more precious, AssociatedMetadataTypeTypeDescriptionProvider is used, which, in turn, simply calls TypeDescriptor.GetProvider with our model type as parameter:

public AssociatedMetadataTypeTypeDescriptionProvider(Type type)
  : base(TypeDescriptor.GetProvider(type))
{
}

So, everything we need is to set our custom TypeDescriptionProvider for our model.

Let's implement our custom provider. First of all, let's define attribute for custom property name:

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property)]
public class CustomBindingNameAttribute : Attribute
{
    public CustomBindingNameAttribute(string propertyName)
    {
        this.PropertyName = propertyName;
    }

    public string PropertyName { get; private set; }
}

If you already have attribute with desired name, you can reuse it. Attribute defined above is just an example. I prefer to use JsonPropertyAttribute because in most cases I work with json and Newtonsoft's library and want to define custom name only once.

The next step is to define custom type descriptor. We will not implement whole type descriptor logic and use default implementation. Only property accessing will be overridden:

public class MyTypeDescription : CustomTypeDescriptor
{
    public MyTypeDescription(ICustomTypeDescriptor parent)
        : base(parent)
    {
    }

    public override PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties()
    {
        return Wrap(base.GetProperties());
    }

    public override PropertyDescriptorCollection GetProperties(Attribute[] attributes)
    {
        return Wrap(base.GetProperties(attributes));
    }

    private static PropertyDescriptorCollection Wrap(PropertyDescriptorCollection src)
    {
        var wrapped = src.Cast<PropertyDescriptor>()
                         .Select(pd => (PropertyDescriptor)new MyPropertyDescriptor(pd))
                         .ToArray();

        return new PropertyDescriptorCollection(wrapped);
    }
}

Also custom property descriptor need to be implemented. Again, everything except property name will be handled by default descriptor. Note, NameHashCode for some reason is a separate property. As name changed, so it's hash code need to be changed too:

public class MyPropertyDescriptor : PropertyDescriptor
{
    private readonly PropertyDescriptor _descr;
    private readonly string _name;

    public MyPropertyDescriptor(PropertyDescriptor descr)
        : base(descr)
    {
        this._descr = descr;

        var customBindingName = this._descr.Attributes[typeof(CustomBindingNameAttribute)] as CustomBindingNameAttribute;
        this._name = customBindingName != null ? customBindingName.PropertyName : this._descr.Name;
    }

    public override string Name
    {
        get { return this._name; }
    }

    protected override int NameHashCode
    {
        get { return this.Name.GetHashCode(); }
    }

    public override bool CanResetValue(object component)
    {
        return this._descr.CanResetValue(component);
    }

    public override object GetValue(object component)
    {
        return this._descr.GetValue(component);
    }

    public override void ResetValue(object component)
    {
        this._descr.ResetValue(component);
    }

    public override void SetValue(object component, object value)
    {
        this._descr.SetValue(component, value);
    }

    public override bool ShouldSerializeValue(object component)
    {
        return this._descr.ShouldSerializeValue(component);
    }

    public override Type ComponentType
    {
        get { return this._descr.ComponentType; }
    }

    public override bool IsReadOnly
    {
        get { return this._descr.IsReadOnly; }
    }

    public override Type PropertyType
    {
        get { return this._descr.PropertyType; }
    }
}

Finally, we need our custom TypeDescriptionProvider and way to bind it to our model type. By default, TypeDescriptionProviderAttribute is designed to perform that binding. But in this case we will not able to get default provider that we want to use internally. In most cases, default provider will be ReflectTypeDescriptionProvider. But this is not guaranteed and this provider is inaccessible due to it's protection level - it's internal. But we do still want to fallback to default provider.

TypeDescriptor also allow to explicitly add provider for our type via AddProvider method. That what we will use. But firstly, let's define our custom provider itself:

public class MyTypeDescriptionProvider : TypeDescriptionProvider
{
    private readonly TypeDescriptionProvider _defaultProvider;

    public MyTypeDescriptionProvider(TypeDescriptionProvider defaultProvider)
    {
        this._defaultProvider = defaultProvider;
    }

    public override ICustomTypeDescriptor GetTypeDescriptor(Type objectType, object instance)
    {
        return new MyTypeDescription(this._defaultProvider.GetTypeDescriptor(objectType, instance));
    }
}

The last step is to bind our provider to our model types. We can implement it in any way we want. For example, let's define some simple class, such as:

public static class TypeDescriptorsConfig
{
    public static void InitializeCustomTypeDescriptorProvider()
    {
        // Assume, this code and all models are in one assembly
        var types = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetTypes()
                            .Where(t => t.GetProperties().Any(p => p.IsDefined(typeof(CustomBindingNameAttribute))));

        foreach (var type in types)
        {
            var defaultProvider = TypeDescriptor.GetProvider(type);
            TypeDescriptor.AddProvider(new MyTypeDescriptionProvider(defaultProvider), type);
        }
    }
}

And either invoke that code via web activation:

[assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(TypeDescriptorsConfig), "InitializeCustomTypeDescriptorProvider")]

Or simply call it in Application_Start method:

public class MvcApplication : HttpApplication
{
    protected void Application_Start()
    {
        TypeDescriptorsConfig.InitializeCustomTypeDescriptorProvider();

        // rest of init code ...
    }
}

But this is not the end of the story. :(

Consider following model:

public class TestModel
{
    [CustomBindingName("actual_name")]
    [DisplayName("Yay!")]
    public string TestProperty { get; set; }
}

If we try to write in .cshtml view something like:

@model Some.Namespace.TestModel
@Html.DisplayNameFor(x => x.TestProperty) @* fail *@

We will get ArgumentException:

An exception of type 'System.ArgumentException' occurred in System.Web.Mvc.dll but was not handled in user code

Additional information: The property Some.Namespace.TestModel.TestProperty could not be found.

That because all helpers soon or later invoke ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression method. And this method take expression we provided (x => x.TestProperty) and takes member name directly from member info and have no clue about any of our attributes, metadata (who cares, huh?):

internal static ModelMetadata FromLambdaExpression<TParameter, TValue>(/* ... */)
{
    // ...

        case ExpressionType.MemberAccess:
            MemberExpression memberExpression = (MemberExpression) expression.Body;
            propertyName = memberExpression.Member is PropertyInfo ? memberExpression.Member.Name : (string) null;
            //                                  I want to cry here - ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    // ...
}

For x => x.TestProperty (where x is TestModel) this method will return TestProperty, not actual_name, but model metadata contains actual_name property, have no TestProperty. That is why the property could not be found error thrown.

This is a design failure.

However despite this little inconvenience there are several workarounds, such as:

1. The easiest way is to access our members by theirs redefined names:

   @model Some.Namespace.TestModel
   @Html.DisplayName("actual_name") @* this will render "Yay!" *@
   

   This is not good. No intellisense at all and as our model change we will have no any compilation errors. On any change anything can be broken and there is no easy way to detect that.

2. Another way is a bit more complex - we can create our own version of that helpers and forbid anybody from calling default helpers or ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression for model classes with renamed properties.

3. Finally, combination of previous two would be preferred: write own analogue to get property name with redefinition support, then pass that into default helper. Something like this:

   @model Some.Namespace.TestModel
   @Html.DisplayName(Html.For(x => x.TestProperty)) 
   

   Compilation-time and intellisense support and no need to spend a lot of time for complete set of helpers. Profit!

Also everything described above work like a charm for model binding. During model binding process default binder also use metadata, gathered by TypeDescriptor.

But I guess binding json data is the best use case. You know, lots of web software and standards use lowercase_separated_by_underscores naming convention. Unfortunately this is not usual convention for C#. Having classes with members named in different convention looks ugly and can end up in troubles. Especially when you have tools that whining every time about naming violation.

ASP.NET MVC default model binder does not bind json to model the same way as it happens when you call newtonsoft's JsonConverter.DeserializeObject method. Instead, json parsed into dictionary. For example:

{
    complex: {
        text: "blabla",
        value: 12.34
    },
    num: 1
}

will be translated into following dictionary:

{ "complex.text", "blabla" }
{ "complex.value", "12.34" }
{ "num", "1" }

And later these values along with others values from query string, route data and so on, collected by different implementations of IValueProvider, will be used by default binder to bind a model with help of metadata, gathered by TypeDescriptor.

So we came full circle from creating model, rendering, binding it back and use it.