Write HTML to string

Question

I have code like this  Is there a way to make it easier to write and maintain  Using C   NET 3 5   string header string title        StringWriter s   new StringWriter        s WriteLine   0     lt  DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC   -  W3C  DTD HTML 4 01  EN     http   www w3 org TR html4 strict dtd   gt         s WriteLine   0      lt html gt         s WriteLine   lt title gt  0  lt  title gt    title       s WriteLine   0     lt link rel   stylesheet   type   text css   href   style css   gt         s WriteLine   0      lt  head gt         s WriteLine   0      lt body gt         s WriteLine   0             I could also just write   s WriteLine   0      blah blah  many new lines blah UHY   amp       Y KSDSD lt  gt  t t t t t tt t t   t t t t   h th  h t th hi done       It will work  but I need to replace all   with

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The most straight forward way is to use an XmlWriter object   This can be used to produce valid HTML and will take care of all of the nasty escape sequences for you     http   msdn microsoft com en-us library system xml xmlwriter aspx

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HSharp is a library used to analyse markup language like HTML easily and fastly  Install  PM gt  Install-Package Obisoft HSharp          var Document   new HDoc DocumentOptions BasicHTML           Document  html    body   AddChild  div            Document  html    body    div   AddChild  a   new HProp  href                   Document  html    body    div   AddChild  table            Document  html    body    div    table   AddChildren           new HTag  tr             new HTag  tr    SomeText             new HTag  tr   new HTag  td              var Result   Document GenerateHTML            Console WriteLine Result     and output    lt html gt   lt head gt   lt meta charset  utf-8  gt  lt  meta gt  lt title gt  Example  lt  title gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt   lt div gt   lt a href      gt  lt  a gt  lt table gt   lt tr gt  lt  tr gt  lt tr gt  SomeText  lt  tr gt   lt tr gt   lt td gt  lt  td gt  lt  tr gt   lt  table gt   lt  div gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt

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return string Format    lt  DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC   -  W3C  DTD HTML 4 01  EN          http   www w3 org TR html4 strict dtd   gt   lt html gt   lt title gt  0  lt  title gt   lt link rel   stylesheet   type   text css   href   style css   gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt     title

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You could write your own classes with its Render method  and another attributes  to avoid a great mess if you use it a lot  and then use the HTMLWriter or the xmlwriter as well   This logic is used in the asp net pages  you can inherit from webControl and override the render method  wich is great if you are developing server-side controls  This could be a good example        Regards

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You can use T4 Templates for generating Html  or any  from your code  see this  http   msdn microsoft com en-us library ee844259 aspx

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I know you asked about C   but if you re willing to use any  Net language then I highly recommend Visual Basic for this exact problem   Visual Basic has a feature called XML Literals that will allow you to write code like this   Module Module1      Sub Main            Dim myTitle    Hello HTML          Dim myHTML    lt html gt                            lt head gt                                lt title gt  lt    myTitle   gt  lt  title gt                            lt  head gt                            lt body gt                                lt h1 gt Welcome lt  h1 gt                                lt table gt                                    lt tr gt  lt th gt ID lt  th gt  lt th gt Name lt  th gt  lt  tr gt                                    lt tr gt  lt td gt 1 lt  td gt  lt td gt CouldBeAVariable lt  td gt  lt  tr gt                                lt  table gt                            lt  body gt                        lt  html gt           Console WriteLine myHTML      End Sub  End Module   This allows you to write straight HTML with expression holes in the old ASP style and makes your code super readable   Unfortunately this feature is not in C   but you could write a single module in VB and add it as a reference to your C  project   Writing in Visual Studio also allows proper indentation for most XML Literals and expression wholes   Indentation for the expression holes is better in VS2010

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This is not a generic solution  however  if your pupose is to have or maintain email templates then System Web has a built-in class called MailDefinition  This class is used by the ASP NET membership controls to create HTML emails   Does the same kind of  string replace  things as mentioned above  but packs it all into a MailMessage for you   Here is an example from MSDN   ListDictionary replacements   new ListDictionary    replacements Add   lt  To  gt   sourceTo Text   replacements Add   lt  From  gt    md From   System Net Mail MailMessage fileMsg  fileMsg   md CreateMailMessage toAddresses  replacements  emailTemplate  this    return fileMsg

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You can use ASP NET to generate your HTML outside the context of web pages   Here s an article that shows how it can be done

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Use an XDocument to create the DOM  then write it out using an XmlWriter  This will give you a wonderfully concise and readable notation as well as nicely formatted output   Take this sample program   using System Xml  using System Xml Linq   class Program       static void Main             var xDocument   new XDocument              new XDocumentType  html   null  null  null               new XElement  html                   new XElement  head                    new XElement  body                       new XElement  p                            This paragraph contains    new XElement  b    bold      text                                              new XElement  p                            This paragraph has just plain text                                                                             var settings   new XmlWriterSettings               OmitXmlDeclaration   true  Indent   true  IndentChars     t                     using  var writer   XmlWriter Create   C  Users wolf Desktop test html   settings                 xDocument WriteTo writer                       This generates the following output    lt  DOCTYPE html  gt   lt html gt       lt head   gt       lt body gt           lt p gt This paragraph contains  lt b gt bold lt  b gt  text  lt  p gt           lt p gt This paragraph has just plain text  lt  p gt       lt  body gt   lt  html gt

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With the introduction of Razor in ASP net MVC  the best way to write HTML in C  is with the Razor Engine   string templatePath       Directory GetCurrentDirectory    EmailTemplates     IRazorLightEngine engine   EngineFactory CreatePhysical templatePath     var model   new Notification            Name    Jone           Title    Test Email           Content    This is a test        string result   engine Parse  template cshtml   model      Template    lt h2 gt Dear  Model Name  you have a notification  lt  h2 gt     lt h1 gt  Model Title lt  h1 gt    lt p gt  Model Content lt  p gt     lt p gt Date  DateTime Now lt  p gt     For a complete sample  see here

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When I deal with this problem in other languages I go for a separation of code and HTML  Something like   1   Create a HTML template  use  varname  placeholders to mark replaced inserted content  2   Fill your template variables from an array or structure mapping dictionary  Write  FillTemplate myHTMLTemplate  myVariables      pseudo-code

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You could use some third party open-source libraries to generated strong typed verified  X HTML  such as CityLizard Framework or Sharp DOM   Update For example  html      head          title  Title of the page             meta               content   text html charset UTF-8               http equiv   Content-Type                      link  href   css style css   rel   stylesheet   type   text css             script  type   text javascript   src    JavaScript jquery-1 4 2 min js               body          div              h1  Test Form to Test                 form  action   post   id   Form1                    div                      label  Parameter                         input  type   text   value   Enter value                         input  type   submit   value   Submit                                                  div                  p  Textual description of the footer                     a  href   http   google com                         span  You can find us here                                       div  Another nested container

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You re probably better off using an HtmlTextWriter or an XMLWriter than a plain StringWriter  They will take care of escaping for you  as well as making sure the document is well-formed   This page shows the basics of using the HtmlTextWriter class  the gist of which being   StringWriter stringWriter   new StringWriter     using  HtmlTextWriter writer   new HtmlTextWriter stringWriter         writer AddAttribute HtmlTextWriterAttribute Class  classValue       writer RenderBeginTag HtmlTextWriterTag Div      Begin  1      writer AddAttribute HtmlTextWriterAttribute Href  urlValue       writer RenderBeginTag HtmlTextWriterTag A      Begin  2      writer AddAttribute HtmlTextWriterAttribute Src  imageValue       writer AddAttribute HtmlTextWriterAttribute Width   60        writer AddAttribute HtmlTextWriterAttribute Height   60        writer AddAttribute HtmlTextWriterAttribute Alt            writer RenderBeginTag HtmlTextWriterTag Img      Begin  3     writer RenderEndTag       End  3      writer Write word        writer RenderEndTag       End  2     writer RenderEndTag       End  1      Return the result  return stringWriter ToString

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I wrote these classes which served me well  It s simple yet pragmatic   public class HtmlAttribute       public string Name   get  set        public string Value   get  set         public HtmlAttribute string name    this name  null           public HtmlAttribute          string name          string  value                this Name   name          this Value    value             public override string ToString                 if  string IsNullOrEmpty this Value               return this Name           if  this Value Contains                   return string Format   0    1     this Name  this Value            return string Format   0     1      this Name  this Value            public class HtmlElement       protected List lt HtmlAttribute gt  Attributes   get  set        protected List lt object gt  Childs   get  set        public string Name   get  set        protected HtmlElement Parent   get  set         public HtmlElement     this null           public HtmlElement string name  params object   childs                this Name   name          this Attributes   new List lt HtmlAttribute gt             this Childs   new List lt object gt              if  childs    null  amp  amp  childs Length  gt  0                        foreach  var c in childs                                Add c                                      public void Add object o                var a   o as HtmlAttribute          if  a    null              this Attributes Add a           else                       var h   o as HtmlElement              if  h    null  amp  amp   string IsNullOrEmpty this Name                                 h Parent   this                  this Childs Add h                             else                 this Childs Add o                        public override string ToString                 var result   new StringBuilder             if   string IsNullOrEmpty this Name                         result Append string Format   lt  0    this Name                if  this Attributes Count  gt  0                                result Append                       foreach  var attr in this Attributes                                        result Append attr ToString                         result Append                                          result   new StringBuilder result ToString   TrimEnd                                   if  this Childs Count    0                                result Append     gt                               else                               result AppendLine   gt                      foreach  var c in this Childs                                        var cParts   c ToString   Split   n                         foreach  var p in cParts                                                result AppendLine string Format   0    p                                                             result Append string Format   lt   0  gt    this Name                                    else                       foreach  var c in this Childs                                var cParts   c ToString   Split   n                     foreach  var p in cParts                                        result AppendLine string Format   0    p                                                       var head   GetHeading this            var ps   result ToString   Split   n            return string Join   r n    from p in ps select head   p TrimEnd   r    ToArray                string GetHeading HtmlElement h                if  h Parent    null              return                 else             return string Empty

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You could use System Xml Linq objects  They were totally redesigned from the old System Xml days which made constructing XML from scratch really annoying   Other than the doctype I guess  you could easily do something like   var html   new XElement  html       new XElement  head           new XElement  title    My Page              new XElement  body            this is some text

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If you re looking to create an HTML document similar to how you would create an XML document in C   you could try Microsoft s open source library  the Html Agility Pack    It provides an HtmlDocument object that has a very similar API to the System Xml XmlDocument class

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It really depends what you are going for  and specifically  what kind of performance you really need to offer   I ve seen admirable solutions for strongly-typed HTML development  complete control models  be it ASP NET Web Controls  or similar to it  that just add amazing complexity to a project  In other situations  it is perfect   In order of preference in the C  world    ASP NET Web Controls ASP NET primitives and HTML controls XmlWriter and or HtmlWriter If doing Silverlight development with HTML interoperability  consider something strongly typed like link text StringBuilder and other super primitives

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I was looking for something that looked like jquery for generating dom in C   I don t need to parse   Unfortunately no luck in finding a lightweight solution so I created this simple class that is inherited from System Xml Linq XElement  The key feature is that you can chain the operator like when using jquery in javascript so it s more fluent  It s not fully featured but it does what I need and if there is interest I can start a git   public class DomElement   XElement       public DomElement string name    base name                   public DomElement string name  string value    base name  value                   public DomElement Css string style  string value                style   style Trim            value   value Trim            var existingStyles   new Dictionary lt string  string gt             var xstyle   this Attribute  style            if  xstyle    null                        foreach  var s in xstyle Value Split                                     var keyValue   s Split                       existingStyles Add keyValue 0   keyValue Length  lt  2   null   keyValue 1                                     if  existingStyles ContainsKey style                         existingStyles style    value                    else                       existingStyles Add style  value                      var styleString   string Join      existingStyles Select s   gt     s Key   s Value              this SetAttributeValue  style   styleString            return this             public DomElement AddClass string cssClass                var existingClasses   new List lt string gt             var xclass   this Attribute  class            if  xclass    null                        existingClasses AddRange xclass Value Split                        var addNewClasses   cssClass Split   Where e   gt   existingClasses Contains e            existingClasses AddRange addNewClasses            this SetAttributeValue  class   string Join      existingClasses            return this             public DomElement Text string text                this Value   text          return this             public DomElement Append string text                this Add text           return this             public DomElement Append DomElement child                this Add child           return this            Sample   void Main         var html   new DomElement  html            Append new DomElement  head             Append new DomElement  body                Append new DomElement  p                    Append  This paragraph contains                    Append new DomElement  b    bold                     Append   text                                   Append new DomElement  p   Text  This paragraph has just plain text                                 html ToString   Dump         var table   new DomElement  table   AddClass  table table-sm   AddClass  table-striped                Append new DomElement  thead                    Append new DomElement  tr                        Append new DomElement  td   Css  padding-left    15px   Css  color    red   Css  color    blue                            AddClass  from-now                            Append new DomElement  div   Text  Hi there                             Append new DomElement  div   Text  Hey there                             Append new DomElement  div    Yo there                                                                            table ToString   Dump        output from above code    lt html gt     lt head   gt     lt body gt       lt p gt This paragraph contains lt b gt bold lt  b gt  text  lt  p gt       lt p gt This paragraph has just plain text lt  p gt     lt  body gt   lt  html gt   lt table class  table table-sm table-striped  gt     lt thead gt       lt tr gt         lt td style  padding-left 15px color blue  class  from-now  gt           lt div gt Hi there lt  div gt           lt div gt Hey there lt  div gt           lt div gt Yo there lt  div gt         lt  td gt       lt  tr gt     lt  thead gt   lt  table gt

[c#] Write HTML to string

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