ASP.NET MVC Checkbox Group

Question

I am trying to formulate a work-around for the lack of a \"checkbox group\" in ASP.NET MVC. The typical way to implement this is to have check boxes of the same name, each

Answer 1

Behold the final solution:

public static class Helpers
{
    public static string CheckboxGroup(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, Expression> propertySelector, int value) where TProperty: IEnumerable
    {
        var groupName = GetPropertyName(propertySelector);
        var modelValues = propertySelector.Compile().Invoke(htmlHelper.ViewData.Model);

        var svalue = value.ToString();
        var builder = new TagBuilder("input");
        builder.GenerateId(groupName);
        builder.Attributes.Add("type", "checkbox");
        builder.Attributes.Add("name", groupName);
        builder.Attributes.Add("value", svalue);
        var contextValues = HttpContext.Current.Request.Form.GetValues(groupName);
        if ((contextValues != null && contextValues.Contains(svalue)) || (modelValues != null && modelValues.Contains(value)))
        {
            builder.Attributes.Add("checked", null);
        }
        return builder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal);
    }

    private static string GetPropertyName(Expression> propertySelector)
    {
        var body = propertySelector.Body.ToString();
        var firstIndex = body.IndexOf('.') + 1;
        return body.Substring(firstIndex);
    }
}

And in your view:

                        <%= Html.CheckboxGroup(model => model.DocumentCoverCustom, "1")%>(iv),

                        <%= Html.CheckboxGroup(model => model.DocumentCoverCustom, "2")%>(vi),

                        <%= Html.CheckboxGroup(model => model.DocumentCoverCustom, "3")%>(vii),

                        <%= Html.CheckboxGroup(model => model.DocumentCoverCustom, "4")%>(ix)