Can I force the Razor TextBoxFor helper to use a specific decimal separator than the default one?

Question

I have the following markup:

@Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.Items[i].Rate, new { @class = "form-control text-center Rate", @readonly = Model.PreTenderLockedDown, title = "Rate" })

When the Rate property is e.g. 12.45 in the db, the above TextBoxFor renders the number with a comma separator and not the period I want. Can I do anything outside of setting the language settings on IIS?

Answer 1

Try this:

web.config:

<system.web>
  <globalization culture="en-US" uiCulture="en-US" />
</system.web>

You can also apply this for the view where you want to force this setting:

<%@ Page="" UICulture="en-US" Culture="en-US" %>

Alternatively, you can override default behavior of TextBoxFor by using a custom helper method. I used a similar one for DropDownListFor in some of my projects as shown below:

Helper Method:

public static class MyHelpers
{
    //Custom HTML Helper method used for setting "class" and disabled attributes of MyDropdownlist
    public class MySelectItem : SelectListItem
    {
        /* Since you are passing this data using ViewData, you don't have a limitation and 
        you can put anything there. I advise that you use ViewBag instead of ViewData. */
        public string Class { get; set; } 
        public string Disabled { get; set; }
    }

    public static MvcHtmlString MyDropdownListFor<TModel, TProperty>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression, IEnumerable<MySelectItem> list, string optionLabel, object htmlAttributes)
    {
        return MyDropdownList(htmlHelper, ExpressionHelper.GetExpressionText(expression), list, optionLabel, HtmlHelper.AnonymousObjectToHtmlAttributes(htmlAttributes));
    }

    public static MvcHtmlString MyDropdownList(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string name, IEnumerable<MySelectItem> list, string optionLabel, IDictionary<string, object> htmlAttributes)
    {
        TagBuilder dropdown = new TagBuilder("select");
        dropdown.Attributes.Add("name", name);
        dropdown.Attributes.Add("id", name);
        StringBuilder options = new StringBuilder();

        // Make optionLabel the first item that gets rendered.
        if (optionLabel != null)
            options = options.Append("<option value='" + String.Empty + "'>" + optionLabel + "</option>");

        foreach (var item in list)
        {
            if(item.Disabled == "disabled")
                options = options.Append("<option value='" + item.Value + "' class='" + item.Class + "' disabled='" + item.Disabled + "'>" + item.Text + "</option>");
            else
                options = options.Append("<option value='" + item.Value + "' class='" + item.Class + "'>" + item.Text + "</option>");
        }
        dropdown.InnerHtml = options.ToString();
        dropdown.MergeAttributes(new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes));
        return MvcHtmlString.Create(dropdown.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal));
    }
}

Answer 2

Using regex will be an option, if you are not interested in over engineering. Sample code like below would work. I haven't tested the code, its just for illustration.

@Html.TextBoxFor(m => Regex.Replace(m.Items[i].Rate.ToString(), @",(?<=\d,)(?=\d)", "."), new { @class = "form-control text-center Rate", @readonly = Model.PreTenderLockedDown, title = "Rate" })

https://stackoverflow.com/a/51221701/575924 use regex from here if possible.

Answer 3

You can use "Value" attribute of TextBoxFor markup.

@Html.TextBoxFor(m => m.Items[i].Rate, new { @class = "form-control text-center Rate", @readonly = Model.PreTenderLockedDown, title = "Rate", Value=String.Format("{0:0.###}", m.Items[i].Rate)  })

Here "{0:0.###}" means that it will display 3 digits under decimal points.