MVC Bind Attribute

Just a quick tip. If you want to use the Bind attribute to set the binding whitelist/blacklist (include/exclude) settings, you may have seen many examples where they set the attribute in the Controller Action signature i.e.
 

public ActionResult UpdateThing([Bind(Exclude="IsSuperUser")]UserEntity model)
{
   ...
}

However, I think the following approach is nicer. First define your ViewModel, which simply extends your entity model. Note that we define the Bind Attribute on the class definition itself.

[Bind(Exclude="IsSuperUser")]
public class VM_User : UserEntity {}

Then you just bind from the ViewModel in your Action.

public ActionResult UpdateThing(VM_User model)
{
   ...
}

To copy property data back from your ViewModel to your entity model, I favour ValueInjecter. I wrote a special Injection class for this purpose: http://zootfroot.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/custom-valueinjecter-injection-to-use.html