Conditionally disable Html.DropDownList

Question

How can I change this DropDownList declaration so that the disabled attribute is enable/disabled conditionally?

<%= Html.DropDownList("Quantity", new SelectList(...), new{@disabled="disabled"} %>

non-working example:

<%= Html.DropDownList("Quantity", new SelectList(...), new{@disabled=Model.CanEdit?"false":"disabled"} %>

p.s. adding an if condition around the entire statement is not a desired approach :)

Answer 1

I don't know if ASP.NET offers a more succinct special-case approach, but presumably you could do:

<%= Html.DropDownList("Quantity", new SelectList(...), Model.CanEdit? new{@class="quantity"} : new{@class="quantity", @disabled:"disabled"}) %>

Answer 2

Please don't write spaghetti code. Html helpers are there for this purpose:

public static string DropDownList(this HtmlHelper html, string name, SelectList values, bool canEdit)
{
    if (canEdit)
    {
        return html.DropDownList(name, values);
    }
    return html.DropDownList(name, values, new { disabled = "disabled" });
}

And then:

<%= Html.DropDownList("Quantity", new SelectList(...), Model.CanEdit) %>

Or maybe you could come up with something even better (if the model contains the options):

<%= Html.DropDownList("Quantity", Model) %>

You will also get the bonus of having more unit testable code.