Is there any way at runtime/programmatically to update the [Display(Name = "...")] display attribute?

Question

I have a database with a large number of tables that I have imported into a .net 6 project using scaffolding (database-first). So all of the tables have been created as C# classes with no attributes decorating them, but separate code automatically created in the Context.cs file that uses Fluent Api to programmatically add the various attributes associated with the database itself.

The one thing that is not added is [Display(Name = "...)"]. In the majority of cases the display name would just be a simple regex of the column name "[a-z][A-Z]" -> "[a-z] [A-Z]", ie adding a space before each capitalized letter. Ie. a column name of "FirstName" would have a display name of "First Name". This should be fairly easy to automate, but I can't find any way to update the DisplayAttributes. The Fluent API only deals with the actual database interactions. I can get an array of the DisplayAttributes with (DisplayAttribute[])Property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DisplayAttribute), false)). But, being an array from a function, I can't see any way to add a DisplayAttribute { Name = MyDisplayName } item to it.

Any help would be very, very appreciated.

Answer 1

Something like this?

public string Title { get; set; }
[CustomDisplay("DateModified")]

Custom attribute

public class CustomDisplayAttribute : DisplayNameAttribute
{
    private string _key;

    public CustomDisplayAttribute(string key)
    {
        _key = key;
    }

    public override string DisplayName => 
        Regex.Replace(Regex.Replace(_key, 
            "(\\P{Ll})(\\P{Ll}\\p{Ll})", "$1 $2"), "(\\p{Ll})(\\P{Ll})", "$1 $2");
}