Can I use a Tag Helper in a custom Tag Helper that returns html?

Question

I recently ran into a situation where I would like to use a tag helper within a tag helper. I looked around and couldn't find anyone else trying to do this, am I using a poor convention or am I missing documentation?

Ex. Tag Helper A outputs HTML that contains another tag helper.

Ex.

[HtmlTargetElement("tag-name")]
public class RazorTagHelper : TagHelper
{
    public override void Process(TagHelperContext context, TagHelperOutput output)
    {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        sb.Append("<a asp-action=\"Home\" ");
        output.Content.SetHtmlContent(sb.ToString());
    }
}

Is there a way for me to process the <a asp-action> </a> tag helper from C#? Or to reprocess the output HTML with tag helpers?

Answer 1

No you cannot. TagHelpers are a Razor parse time feature.

One alternative is creating a TagHelper and manually invoking its ProcessAsync/Process method. Aka:

var anchorTagHelper = new AnchorTagHelper
{
    Action = "Home",
};
var anchorOutput = new TagHelperOutput("a", new TagHelperAttributeList(), (useCachedResult, encoder) => new HtmlString());
var anchorContext = new TagHelperContext(
    new TagHelperAttributeList(new[] { new TagHelperAttribute("asp-action", new HtmlString("Home")) }),
    new Dictionary<object, object>(),
    Guid.NewGuid());
await anchorTagHelper.ProcessAsync(anchorContext, anchorOutput);
output.Content.SetHtmlContent(anchorOutput);

Answer 2

I don't know if this works for your scenario, but it is possible to inherit from the AnchorTagHelper and then do your customisations like this.

public class TestTagHelper : AnchorTagHelper
{
    public TestTagHelper(IHtmlGenerator htmlGenerator) : base(htmlGenerator) { }

    public async override Task ProcessAsync(TagHelperContext context, TagHelperOutput output)
    {
        // Replaces <test> with <a> tag
        output.TagName = "a"; 
        // do custom processing
        output.Attributes.SetAttribute("class", "custom-class");
        // let the base class generate the href 
        // note the base method may override your changes so it may be  
        // preferable to call it first instead of last.
        await base.ProcessAsync(context, output);
    }
}

Then you can just use this tag helper in your view with all the built-in goodness of the default AnchorTagHelper.

<test asp-action="Index" asp-route-id="5"></test>

Answer 3

If anyone's looking to reuse the built-in tag helpers from asp.net core, you can use the IHtmlGenerator instead. For reusing other types of tag helpers, I haven't found a simpler option then @N. Taylor Mullen answer

Here is how to reuse the asp-action tag helper:

[HtmlTargetElement("helplink")]
public class RazorTagHelper : TagHelper
{
    private readonly IHtmlGenerator _htmlGenerator;

    public RazorTagHelper(IHtmlGenerator htmlGenerator)
    {
        _htmlGenerator = htmlGenerator;
    }

    [ViewContext]
    public ViewContext ViewContext { set; get; }

    public override void Process(TagHelperContext context, TagHelperOutput output)
    {
        output.TagName = "div";
        output.TagMode = TagMode.StartTagAndEndTag;
        var actionAnchor = _htmlGenerator.GenerateActionLink(
            ViewContext,
            linkText: "Home",
            actionName: "Index",
            controllerName: null,
            fragment: null,
            hostname: null,
            htmlAttributes: null,
            protocol: null,
            routeValues: null
            );
        var builder = new HtmlContentBuilder();
        builder.AppendHtml("Here's the link: ");
        builder.AppendHtml(actionAnchor);
        output.Content.SetHtmlContent(builder);
    }
}