ASP .Net Core Custom Tag Helper to Convert CamelCase Properties to spaces

Question

Is it possible in ASP.Net Core to automatically convert camel case property names in view models to insert spaces into the corresponding labels when using tag helpers?

If my view model looks like this...

[Display(Name = "First Name")]
public string FirstName { get; set; }

[Display(Name = "Last Name")]
public string LastName { get; set; }

[Display(Name = "Referral Date")]
public DateTime ReferralDate { get; set; }

It seems like a lot of extra configuration applying data annotations such as

[Display(Name = "First Name")]

to simply insert a space between words. It would make sense that Tag Helpers would insert the space by default to avoid this manual configuration and potential typos.

If not could a custom tag helper assist in this situation and if so how would it work?

Answer 1

You can achieve this by building and registering a custom display metadata provider. There are libraries that will perform more elaborate "humanization" to the property names, but you can achieve something pretty useful with some trusty regular expressions.

public class HumanizerMetadataProvider : IDisplayMetadataProvider
{
    public void CreateDisplayMetadata(DisplayMetadataProviderContext context)
    {
        var propertyAttributes = context.Attributes;
        var modelMetadata = context.DisplayMetadata;
        var propertyName = context.Key.Name;

        if (IsTransformRequired(propertyName, modelMetadata, propertyAttributes))
        {
            modelMetadata.DisplayName = () => SplitCamelCase(propertyName);
        }
    }

    private static string SplitCamelCase(string str)
    {
        return Regex.Replace(
            Regex.Replace(
                str,
                @"(\P{Ll})(\P{Ll}\p{Ll})",
                "$1 $2"
            ),
            @"(\p{Ll})(\P{Ll})",
            "$1 $2"
        );
    }

    private static bool IsTransformRequired(string propertyName, DisplayMetadata modelMetadata, IReadOnlyList<object> propertyAttributes)
    {
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(modelMetadata.SimpleDisplayProperty))
            return false;

        if (propertyAttributes.OfType<DisplayNameAttribute>().Any())
            return false;

        if (propertyAttributes.OfType<DisplayAttribute>().Any())
            return false;

        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(propertyName))
            return false;

        return true;
    }
}

The IsTransformRequired method ensures that you can still override the provider with a decorated property when you need to.

Register the provider on startup through the AddMvcOptions method on IMvcBuilder:

builder.AddMvcOptions(m => m.ModelMetadataDetailsProviders.Add(new HumanizerMetadataProvider()));