How do I construct an if statement within a MVC View - asp.net-mvc

Question

Hopefully this question is quick and painless
I have a mvc view where i want to display either one of two values depending on an if statement. This is what I have in the view itself:
<%if (model.CountryId == model.CountryId) %>
<%= Html.Encode(model.LocalComment)%>
<%= Html.Encode(model.IntComment)%>
If true display model.LocalComment, if false display model.IntComment.
This doesn't work as I get both values showing. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Your if statement always evaluates to true. You are testing whether model.CountryId equals model.CountryId which is always true: if (model.CountryId == model.CountryId). Also you are missing an else statement. It should be like this:
<%if (model.CountryId == 1) { %>
<%= Html.Encode(model.LocalComment) %>
<% } else if (model.CountryId == 2) { %>
<%= Html.Encode(model.IntComment) %>
<% } %>
Obviously you need to replace 1 and 2 with the proper values.
Personally I would write an HTML helper for this task to avoid the tag soup in the views:
public static MvcHtmlString Comment(this HtmlHelper<YourModelType> htmlHelper)
{
var model = htmlHelper.ViewData.Model;
if (model.CountryId == 1)
{
return MvcHtmlString.Create(model.LocalComment);
}
else if (model.CountryId == 2)
{
return MvcHtmlString.Create(model.IntComment);
}
return MvcHtmlString.Empty;
}
And then in your view simply:
<%= Html.Comment() %>

Answer 2

Aside from Darin's point about the condition always being true, you might want to consider using the conditional operator:
<%= Html.Encode(model.CountryId == 1 ? model.LocalComment : model.IntComment) %>
(Adjust for whatever your real condition would be, of course.)
Personally I find this easier to read than the big mixture of <% %> and <%= %>.

Answer 3

Conditional Rendering in Asp.Net MVC Views
<% if(customer.Type == CustomerType.Affiliate) %>
<%= this.Html.Image("~/Content/Images/customer_affiliate_icon.jpg")%>
<% else if(customer.Type == CustomerType.Preferred) %>
<%= this.Html.Image("~/Content/Images/customer_preferred_icon.jpg")%>
<% else %>
<%= this.Html.Image("~/Content/Images/customer_regular_icon.jpg")%>