getting the values from a nested complex object that is passed to a partial view

Question

I have a ViewModel that has a complex object as one of its members. The complex object has 4 properties (all strings). I\'m trying to create a re-usable partial view where

Answer 1

You can pass the prefix to the partial using

@Html.Partial("MyPartialView", Model.ComplexModel, 
    new ViewDataDictionary { TemplateInfo = new TemplateInfo { HtmlFieldPrefix = "ComplexModel" }})

which will perpend the prefix to you controls name attribute so that will become and correctly bind to typeof MyViewModel on post back

Edit

To make it a little easier, you can encapsulate this in a html helper

public static MvcHtmlString PartialFor(this HtmlHelper helper, Expression> expression, string partialViewName)
{
  string name = ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(expression);
  object model = ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression(expression, helper.ViewData).Model;
  var viewData = new ViewDataDictionary(helper.ViewData)
  {
    TemplateInfo = new System.Web.Mvc.TemplateInfo 
    { 
      HtmlFieldPrefix = string.IsNullOrEmpty(helper.ViewData.TemplateInfo.HtmlFieldPrefix) ? 
        name : $"{helper.ViewData.TemplateInfo.HtmlFieldPrefix}.{name}"
    }
  };
  return helper.Partial(partialViewName, model, viewData);
}

and use it as

@Html.PartialFor(m => m.ComplexModel, "MyPartialView")