Display empty textbox using Html.TextBoxFor on a not-null property in an EF entity

Question

I am using Entity Framework (v4) entities. I have an entity called Car with a Year property of type integer. The Year property does not allow NULL. I have the following in my Create view:

<%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Year) %>

I am required to return a new Car object (due to other requirements) in my HttpGet Create action in the CarController.

Currently, a zero is displayed in the Year textbox because the Year property does not allow NULL. I would like to display an empty textbox in the Create view. How do I do this?

Answer 1

Use Html Attributes Overload. In razor it would be:

@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Year, new { Value = "" })

Answer 2

Try this instead:

Html.TextBox("Year", "")

Answer 3

If you are using the strongly typed TextAreaFor helper, then there is no direct way to set a default value. The point of the strongly typed helper is that it binds the text area to a model property and gets the value from there. If you want a default value, then putting in the model would achieve that. You can also just switch to the non-strongly typed TextArea helper. It gives you more a bit more flexibility for cases like this:

   @{
          var defaultValue= "";
        }
    @Html.TextArea("Model.Description", defaultValue, new { Value = "added text", @class = "form-control", @placeholder = "Write a description", @rows = 5 })

Answer 4

Try this is you are trying to append to your field or want to modify an existing field with an empty TextBoxFor.

Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Year, Model.Year="")