Is there a way to prevent Visual Studio 2010 formatting C# code in ASP.NET MVC views?

Question

I'd like Visual Studio to continue automatically formatting my .cs files, but is there a way to prevent it auto-formatting C# code in between the <% %> tags in ASP.NET MVC views because it really makes a mess of it?

Has anyone tried this with VS2010 SP1 yet? The beta was released in the last few days. — Drew Noakes, Dec 10 '10 at 02:09
@Drew - not yet. If I get time I may fire up a VM and test this. — Kev, Dec 10 '10 at 09:31

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 06 '10 at 00:26

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As far as I know there isn't a way to turn off the formatting just in ASP.NET files as it uses the rules for C# in Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> C#.

answered Oct 06 '10 at 00:26

zainnab

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Maybe in v.next they'll fix this. – Kev Oct 06 '10 at 08:40

Jon Kragh · Answer 2 · 2010-12-10T00:44:49.420

There is no way to do it and it is a huge time waster fixing up the formatting in .aspx pages over and over again. It drives me nuts.

There are two connect issues/bugs for this. One was marked as fixed for months but the latest response does not look like anything was even done.

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/514691/add-aspx-or-inline-c-as-an-option-in-text-editor-formatting-options

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/586729/support-c-formatting-options-for-aspx-pages

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 08 '10 at 18:04

Unfortunately (afaik), you can't have separate settings for C# in .cs and .aspx files. You can change the settings for C# in Tools -> Options -> C# -> Formatting.

To get things to work well with MVC, I changed some settings in the New Lines section. I unchecked the boxes for control block, object initializers, and "else". This produces the walk-like-an-egyptian style braces that works best in MVC code, without screwing too much with my normal C# code. I leave the settings for functions, classes etc. alone since you don't normally define those in an .aspx file.

Thanks, I'll have a fiddle about with these settings. – Kev Oct 08 '10 at 18:36 — Kev, Oct 08 '10 at 18:36

score -1 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

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You may consider using Razor as your View Engine instead of aspx.

see also:

http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/07/02/introducing-razor.aspx (Scott Guthrie)
ASP.NET MVC Razor view engine (StackOverflow)

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

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answered May 31 '11 at 11:09

oleschri

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Makes no difference to the formatting problem with VS - it makes a hash of Razor views too. – Jonathan Moffatt Feb 15 '12 at 23:54
@JonathanMoffatt if you use spaces instead of tabs you should be fine: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6267165/visual-studio-2010-code-formatting-in-cshtml-improper-indentation – oleschri Feb 16 '12 at 08:50

Is there a way to prevent Visual Studio 2010 formatting C# code in ASP.NET MVC views?

4 Answers4