How to use LabelFor on a strongly typed view for a list

Question

When I used asp.net mvc 3 scaffolding to make a list. I got a view containing a table. With the headers of that table hard coded in the view. I want to use LabelFor, so I get the l10n I need.

What I tried to do (but failed) was:

@model IEnumerable<User>
<table>
 <tr>
   <th>
      @(Html.LabelFor<User, string>(model => model.Name)) <!--This line errors-->
   </th>
 </tr>

@foreach (var item in Model) {
<tr>
 <td>
  @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name)
 </td>
</table>

It errors with "IEnumerable does not contain a definition for Name".. etc...

How do I make this work?

Answer 1

Try with some like

@(Html.LabelFor<User, string>(model => model.FirstOrDefault().Name))

Answer 2

Your view model is not adapted to what you are trying to achieve. Here's how a better view model would look like:

public class MyViewModel
{
    // This property represents the header value
    // you could use data annotations to localize it
    [Display(.. some localization here ..)]
    public string NameHeader { get; set; }

    // This property represents the data source that 
    // will be used to build the table
    public IEnumerable<User> Users { get; set; }
}

and then:

@model MyViewModel
<table>
    <tr>
        <th>
            @Html.LabelFor(x => x.NameHeader)
        </th>
    </tr>

    @foreach (var item in Model.Users) {
    <tr>
        <td>
            @Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name)
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>

and with a display template you don't even need to write a foreach loop:

@model MyViewModel
<table>
    <tr>
        <th>
            @Html.LabelFor(x => x.NameHeader)
        </th>
    </tr>
    @Html.DisplayFor(x => x.Users)
</table>

and inside the custom display template ( ~/Views/Shared/DisplayTemplates/User.cshtml ):

@model User
<tr>
    <td>@Html.DisplayFor(x => x.Name)</td>
</tr>

Answer 3

You render the Label before (or outside) of the foreach iteration, thus you try to access Name property in an IEnumerable collection which doesn't exist.