Html.HiddenFor value property not getting set

Question

I could have used

@Html.HiddenFor(x=> ViewData[\"crn\"])

but, I get,

Answer 1

Have you tried using a view model instead of ViewData? Strongly typed helpers that end with For and take a lambda expression cannot work with weakly typed structures such as ViewData.

Personally I don't use ViewData/ViewBag. I define view models and have my controller actions pass those view models to my views.

For example in your case I would define a view model:

public class MyViewModel
{
    [HiddenInput(DisplayValue = false)]
    public string CRN { get; set; }
}

have my controller action populate this view model:

public ActionResult Index()
{
    var model = new MyViewModel
    {
        CRN = "foo bar"
    };
    return View(model);
}

and then have my strongly typed view simply use an EditorFor helper:

@model MyViewModel
@Html.EditorFor(x => x.CRN)

which would generate me:

in the resulting HTML.