Putting HTML inside Html.ActionLink(), plus No Link Text?

Question

I have two questions:

I'm wondering how I can display no link text when using Html.ActionLink() in an MVC view (actually, this is Site.Master).

There is not an overloaded version that does not allow link text, and when I try passing in just a blank string, the compiler tells me it needs a non-empty string.

How can I fix this?

I need to put tags within the anchor tag, but it's not working with Html.ActionLink();. I'd like to see the following output:

Span text

How can I put tags inside of the anchor tag in ASP.NET MVC?

user_87416 · Answer

Instead of using Html.ActionLink you can render a url via Url.Action

">Text
Text

And to do a blank url you could have

">

user_12950 · Answer

A custom HtmlHelper extension is another option. Note: ParameterDictionary is my own type. You could substitute a RouteValueDictionary but you'd have to construct it differently.

public static string ActionLinkSpan( this HtmlHelper helper, string linkText, string actionName, string controllerName, object htmlAttributes )
{
    TagBuilder spanBuilder = new TagBuilder( "span" );
    spanBuilder.InnerHtml = linkText;

    return BuildNestedAnchor( spanBuilder.ToString(), string.Format( "/{0}/{1}", controllerName, actionName ), htmlAttributes );
}

private static string BuildNestedAnchor( string innerHtml, string url, object htmlAttributes )
{
    TagBuilder anchorBuilder = new TagBuilder( "a" );
    anchorBuilder.Attributes.Add( "href", url );
    anchorBuilder.MergeAttributes( new ParameterDictionary( htmlAttributes ) );
    anchorBuilder.InnerHtml = innerHtml;

    return anchorBuilder.ToString();
}

Craig_Stuntz_7714 · Answer

Just use Url.Action instead of Html.ActionLink:

">Span text

user_11814121 · Answer

please try this code:

@Html.Raw(@Html.ActionLink("text", "ActionName", "ControllerName", null, new { area = "Home" }).ToHtmlString().Replace("text", " Link Text"))

Putting HTML inside Html.ActionLink(), plus No Link Text?

12 Answers