Is this a bug? Or is it a setting in ASP.NET 4 (or MVC 2)?

Question

I just recently started trying out T4MVC and I like the idea of eliminating magic strings.

However, when trying to use it on my master page for my stylesheets, I get this:

<link href="<%: Links.Content.site_css %>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

rending like this:

<link href="&lt;%: Links.Content.site_css %>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

Whereas these render correctly:

<link href="<%: Url.Content("~/Content/Site.css") %>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<link href="<%: Links.Content.site_css + "" %>" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

It appears that, as long as I have double quotes inside of the code segment, it works. But when I put anything else in there, it escapes the leading "less than".

Is this something I can turn off? Is this a bug?

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Edit:

This does not happen for <script src="..." ... />, nor does it happen for <a href="...">.

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Edit 2:

Minimal case:

<link href="<%: string.Empty %>" />

vs

<link href="<%: "" %>" />

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Edit 3:

I have a workaround, I have implemented an HtmlHelper extension so that I can do this:

<%: Html.StyleSheet(Links.Content.site_css) %>

I like the support for intellisens better, so I'm actually going to stick with that. Right now, I'm just trying to solve the bug.

Answer 1

It looks like a bug to me, the compiled output for that is:

private global::System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlLink @__BuildControl__control5() {
    global::System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlLink @__ctrl;            
    @__ctrl = new global::System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlLink();
    @__ctrl.Href = "<%: String.Empty %>";
    ((System.Web.UI.IAttributeAccessor)(@__ctrl)).SetAttribute("rel", "stylesheet");
    ((System.Web.UI.IAttributeAccessor)(@__ctrl)).SetAttribute("type", "text/css");
    return @__ctrl;
}

This seems to only happen when the control is inside a head runat="server"