Possible bug in ASP.NET MVC with form values being replaced

Question

I appear to be having a problem with ASP.NET MVC in that, if I have more than one form on a page which uses the same name in each one, but as different types (radio/hidden/e

Answer 1

As others have suggested, I went with using direct html code instead of using the HtmlHelpers (TextBoxFor, CheckBoxFor, HiddenFor etc.).

The problem though with this approach is that you need to put the name and id attributes as strings. I wanted to keep my model properties strongly-typed so I used the NameFor and IdFor HtmlHelpers.

Update: Here's a handy HtmlHelper extension

    public static MvcHtmlString MyHiddenFor(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression> expression, object htmlAttributes = null)
    {
        return new MvcHtmlString(
            string.Format(
                @"",
                helper.IdFor(expression),
                helper.NameFor(expression),
                GetValueFor(helper, expression)
            ));
    }

    /// 

    /// Retrieves value from expression
    /// 
    private static string GetValueFor(HtmlHelper helper, Expression> expression)
    {
        object obj = expression.Compile().Invoke(helper.ViewData.Model);
        string val = string.Empty;
        if (obj != null)
            val = obj.ToString();
        return val;
    }

You can then use it like

@Html.MyHiddenFor(m => m.Name)