DisplayNameFor a Model 子集合

Question

Suppose I have

class Item { 
    string Name {get; set;} 
    int Type {get; set;} 
}

If I have my model as a collection of Items, the following compiles:

@model IEnumerable<Item>

@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Name)

Now supppose I have changed to this

class MyItems {
    int Type {get; set;}
    IEnumerable<Item> Items {get; set;}
}

this does not compile anymore

@model MyItems  

@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Items.Name) // NOK

Error CS1061 ' IEnumerable<Item> ' does not contain a definition for 'Name' and no accessible extension method 'Name' accepting a first argument of type ' IEnumerable<Item> ' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

I tried

@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => Model.Items.Name) // _M_odel, NOK

Why the code works in the first case when we have an IEnumerable , and not the second case, when we have the same IEnumerable ?

Answer 1

The first one works because the model is itself of type IEnumerable while in latter it's the property of main model which is IEnumerable

The error is pretty self descriptive the Items property is a collection of Item so you need to either loop on it or select one of them like:

@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => model.Items.First().Name)

or do like:

@{
     var item = model.Items.First();
 }
@Html.DisplayNameFor(model => item.Name)

But the First() will throw exception in case the Items collection is null or empty.