How to access the Model from the View?

Question

I have a search page that display a search result. The search result is a list of persons that matched the specific search. I'm iterating through this list displaying them in a table. As headers for this table I want the DisplayName from the model. If I don't inherit IEnumerable I wouldn't be able to iterate through the list. I'm new at this MVC thing =)

I iterate through the result like this:

<% foreach (var item in Person) { %> 
   <%: item.surname %>
<% } %>

But how do I print the "DisplayName" of an attribute without iterating through the whole list? I would just like to do:

<%: Html.LabelFor(m => m.surname) %>

If it's any help I inherit an IEnumerable at the top of the page:

<%@ Page Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<IEnumerable<RegistryTest.Models.Person>>" %>  

Edit
I want to display "Your surname" but I don't know how to access it from the view.

[DisplayName("Your surname")]
public object surname { get; set; }  

Here's a very similar question that hasn't been answered either: Can I use LabelFor() when the page inherits from IEnumerable<T>?

Answer 1

If you only need to display specifics of one person; you should consider sending only one person to the view instead of a complete list of persons. In that case

Model.Surname

would work just like that. So instead of:

Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<IEnumerable<RegistryTest.Models.Person>>"

do

Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<RegistryTest.Models.Person>"

In this case a single person is loaded into your Model and Model.Property works fine. If you want an IENumerable<>, think about what that means. You are sending a list of persons, so the only thing in your "Model" is a IENumerable<> of persons. There is no way that the view can know what you want if you call Model.Property, since in the Model there are multiple Objects and the view doesn't know which Object you want to get the Property from.

Bottom line, if you want to call Model.Property (Model.surname) but also want to send an IENumerable you are having a design flaw. If you send a list you should want to do something with the complete list (iterate through and do something with the contents). If you just want to do something with one person in that list, re-design your view/controller and send that single person; then you can use Model.Property.

//EDIT BASED UPON COMMENTS As I see it now you either want to do one of those two things (I do not know which):

1. Show the records of an item in your list in a table and put the DisplayName of the current object shown in the table in the header.
2. Show all items of the list in your table and put some sort of DisplayName in the header. This makes less sence but it could be that you mean to name your list.

Situation 1 This is working as the rest of your code? The following would work just fine.

<% foreach (var item in Model) { %> 
   <table>
      <th>item.DisplayName</th>
      <tr>
         <td>item.Property1</td>
         <td>item.Property2</td>
      </tr>
   </table>
<% } %>

Situation 2 If you want a DisplayName of the list (??) you should create a ViewModel containing the IENumerable of Persons and a public string ListName. Now you can do something like:

<table>
  <th>Model.ListName</th>
  <% foreach (var item in Model) { %>           
      <tr>
         <td>item.Property1</td>
         <td>item.Property2</td>
      </tr>
  <% } %>
</table>

this would create a table with the name of your List (given in the ViewModel) as header and as items in the table you have your persons.

Design problem? However, I would love to see you write some more information in your question above. Give us some more information on what you want to do. Do you want to show records of each Person in the list one-by-one? In that case I would recommend you create a Partial View where you put your table. Then you would get something like:

<% foreach (var item in Model) { %>     
   <% Html.RenderPartial("TablePerson",item); %>
<% } %> 

tableperson.ascx:

...
Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<IEnumerable<RegistryTest.Models.Person>>"
...
<table>
   <th>Model.DisplayName</th>
   <tr>
      <td>Model.Property1</td>
      <td>Model.Property2</td>
   </tr>
</table>

So, we need more information I'm afraid :)

Answer 2

If it's a collection with every entry having the same surname then try model[0].surname or model.ToList().First().surname

You don't need ToList() if its a List<T> already. Then it would be just model.First()

Answer 3

You are specifying that the page model is IEnumerable, and you say you would like to print a property of an element. Since you have a list of elements, you need to specify which of the elements you would like to retrieve the property from.

I you want a specific index in the list you will need to convert the IEnumerable collection to IList (ToList()), depending on the criteria, you may also be able to find the required element using something like a LINQ Single() operation.

Otherwise you could select the property from all the element in the list using Model.Select(m => m.PropertyName) which will give you a list of just this property, and then concatenate this list to a single string.