Why is there a [Display(AutoGenerateField=false)] and a [HiddenInput(DisplayValue = false)]?

Title kinda says it all.

There appears to be two ways to mark a field as "Please don't show on the UI" with attributes. One lives in the DataAnnotations name开发者_Python百科space, which is where I think it belongs, and the other lives in the MVC-specific namespace System.Web.Mvc, which I think is the wrong place.

It means that for an MVC app, I have to dirty my domain class with the MVC namespace, rather than use the "more generic" ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.

Is there any way to have the MVC framework take notice of the Display() attribute?

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You should be using ViewModels in the view, not Entities from your domain. Because the ViewModels (or commands) are view specific, it does not matter if they have a reference to System.Web.x.

I would look into SoC : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns

And Automapper /W ViewModels : http://bengtbe.com/blog/2009/04/14/using-automapper-to-map-view-models-in-asp-net-mvc/

Also, to answer your quesion:

[HiddenInput(DisplayValue = false)] will render <input id="propId" name="propId" type="hidden" value="21" />

Display(AutoGenerateField=false)] will not render at all.

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Although you should really take note of Paul's answer re: using ViewModels, a common solution to your problem is to decorate your property with the UIHint attribute which lives in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace.

e.g.

[UIHint("Hidden")]

Then add a small view template in Shared\EditorTemplates\Hidden.cshtml like

@model object
@Html.HiddenFor( x => x)

Where the name of the template matches the string given in UIHint