Invalid anonymous type member declarator. Anonymous type members must be declared with a member assignment, simple name or member access

Question

I'm trying to add additional attribute data-icon to my Action Link, but I'm getting the error below:

Invalid anonymous type member declarator. Anonymous type members must be declared with a member assignment, simple name or member access.

Works:

@Html.ActionLink("Profile", "Details", "Profile", new { id = 11 }, 
            new { @rel = "external", @id = "btnProfile" })

Exception:

@Html.ActionLink("Profile", "Details", "Profile", new { id = 11 }, 
            new { @rel = "external", @id = "btnProfile", @data-icon = "gear" })

Solution 1

UPDATE: From Xander's comment above, use data_icon = "gear"

You can use an IDictionary<string, object> in place of the anonymous object for HTML attributes:

@Html.ActionLink("Profile", "Details", "Profile", new { id = 11 }
    , new Dictionary<string, object>
    {
        { "rel", "external" }, 
        { "id", "btnProfile" },
        { "data-icon", "gear" },
    })

See this overload: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd504988.aspx

The helper you are using is just a convenient method of creating the dictionary, but behind the scenes the dictionary is created anyway.

Solution 2

I think you use underscore like data_icon and it translates it

Solution 3

I just use the following

@using System.Web.Routing

@{
    RouteValueDictionary RouteValues = new RouteValueDictionary();

    RouteValues["id"] = 11;
    RouteValues[Some_Name] = Some_Value; //do this with as many name/value pairs 
                                         //as you like
}

@Html.ActionLink("Link Text", "Action", "Controller", RouteValues)

which I learnt from Jon's answer in this post.

I have mainly used this in my controllers to provide the route values for RedirectToAction() methods, but i don't see why it shouldn't work in your view, you will need to add a @using System.Web.Routing; though.

Comments

[Alex]

instead of @data-icon use @data_icon

[Eugene]

gives the same exception

[Gambitier]

Does this answer your question? How to specify data attributes in razor, e.g., data-externalid="23151" on @this.Html.CheckBoxFor(...)

[xdumaine]

When I do this, it renders the link like: <a comparer="System.Collections.Generic.GenericEqualityComparer‌​1[System.String]" count="1" keys="System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary2+KeyCollection[S‌​ystem.String,System.‌​Object]" values="System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary2+ValueCollecti‌​on[System.String,Sys‌​tem.Object]" href="/Account/LogOff/1" class="ui-link">Log Off</a>

[KeithFearnley]

I had this problem with a period/dot in my parameter (a class Filter with a member that I wanted to pass), I found the following worked... @Html.ActionLink("Profile", "Details", new RouteValueDictionary{ {"filter.member", myvalue.ToString() } } ) Hope the formatting works - basically use RouteValueDictionary instead of the anonymous type?

[Ameerudheen.K]

perfect answer.