Specify custom name for asp-for (Need only the child property)

Question

Let's say I have this code:

<input type="hidden" asp-for="CurrentThread.ThreadId" />

This will generate a hidden input with the name CurrentThread_ThreadId. However, I would like the name to be "ThreadId" only. Basically, would like to ignore any parent class and only wanting the name of the last property.

I can easily do:

<input type="hidden" asp-for="CurrentThread.ThreadId" name="ThreadId" />

However, I am losing intellisense.

I was just wondering if there is a something I can do to generate name "ThreadId" with Intellisense.

Answer 1

You can extend the existing input tag helper to set a custom value for name attribute.

[HtmlTargetElement("input", TagStructure = TagStructure.WithoutEndTag)]
public class MyTagHelper : Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.TagHelpers.InputTagHelper
{
    [HtmlAttributeName("asp-short-name")]
    public bool IsShortName { set; get; }

    public MyTagHelper(IHtmlGenerator generator) : base(generator)
    {
    }

    public override void Process(TagHelperContext context, TagHelperOutput output)
    {
        if (IsShortName)
        {
            string nameAttrValue = (string)output.Attributes.Single(a => a.Name == "name").Value;
            output.Attributes.SetAttribute("name", nameAttrValue.Split('.').Last());
        }
        base.Process(context, output);
    }
}

To register your custom tag helper you need add to _ViewImports.cshtml:

@addTagHelper *, [AssemblyName]

Then you can use it:

<input type="hidden" asp-for="CurrentThread.ThreadId" asp-short-name="true"/>

Note: As @Stephen Muecke noted the default model binding will not work. You may need to create a custom model binder or use other techniques to retrieve model values from the request