ASP.NET MVC - Html.TextBoxFor producing input type="text"

Question

I have something like this:

@Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Message)

With message being declared like that:

[Required]
[DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
[Display(Name = "Message", ResourceType = typeof(NameResources))]
[StringLength(256, ErrorMessageResourceName = "MailBoxMessageLengthError", ErrorMessageResourceType = typeof(NameResources), MinimumLength = 2)]
public string Message { get; set; }

And still, i get output like this:

<input data-val="true" data-val-length="Wiadomość nie może przekraczać 256 znak&amp;#243;w" data-val-length-max="256" data-val-length-min="2" data-val-required="Pole Wiadomość jest wymagane." id="Message" name="Message" type="text" value="" />

Why it gives me text input when i clearly want that textbox in there?

Answer 1

I do not understand what's wrong. <input type="text" /> is actually HTML text box. If you want multiline "textbox" use Html.TextArea instead. Good resource on SO, how to use it : creating multiline textbox using Html.Helper function

Answer 2

The problem is that you're using

@Html.TextBoxFor

as confirmed by mipe34 this specifically states you want a textbox (single line) not a text area (multi-line).

If you had used

@Html.EditorFor

then MVC will look at your attributes and render the correct control accordingly - you already have [DataType(DataType.MultilineText)] which would have generated a textarea if you had used EditorFor.

In otherwords: always use EditorFor+attributes or use the correct xFor and don't bother with attributes.