ASP.NET MVC 2 points replaced by subtree in element name

Question

ASP.NET MVC 2 points replaced by the subscript in the element name (although ASP.NET MVC will put the default points in the name attribute!)

When you insert an element in a form in ASP.NET MVC, it usually does the following:

<%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.Contact.FirstName)%>

becomes

<input type="text" name="Contact.FirstName" id="Contact_FirstName" ...

This is good and good. However, if you want to do this:

<%= Html.DropDownList(
    "Contact_Title",
    new SelectList(Model.Titles, "Key", "Value"))%>

In fact, you end up with

<select id="Contact_Title" name="Contact_Title">...

Note that you now have an underscore, not a period in the name attribute.

So, I thought I was passing the name, including the dot, for example:

<%= Html.DropDownList(
    "Contact_Title", 
    new SelectList(Model.Titles, "Key", "Value"),
    new { name = "Contact\\.Title" })%>

But it still displays as:

<select id="Contact_Title" name="Contact_Title">...

I really (really) want this to display as:

<select id="Contact_Title" name="Contact.Title">...

To make it automatically bound to Model.Contact.Title - any ideas?

IMPORTANT UPDATE

... , , name ...

new { name = "MYNAME" }

- Contact_Title!

!

Answer 1

<%= Html.DropDownList(
    "Contact.Title",
    new SelectList(Model.Titles, "Key", "Value"))%>

:

<select id="Contact_Title" name="Contact.Title">...

id, xhtml.