Building HtmlStrings in ASP.NET MVC

Question

I have an extension method that needs to return an HtmlString. The method has a loop which will build the HtmlString, however the HtmlString object has no Append method and does not allow concatenation using the + operator so I am not sure how I would build the HtmlString.

I'd like to use the StringBuilder but it doesn't have a ToHtmlString method...

Any solutions or patterns for this?

Answer 1

Why not just build the string in a stringbuilder and then return MvcHtmlString.Create(sb.ToString());

Answer 2

i think you want to use TagBuilder and see Using the TagBuilder Class to Build HTML Helpers

like below..

   // Create tag builder
            var builder = new TagBuilder("img");

            // Create valid id
            builder.GenerateId(id);

            // Add attributes
            builder.MergeAttribute("src", url);
            builder.MergeAttribute("alt", alternateText);
            builder.MergeAttributes(new RouteValueDictionary(htmlAttributes));

            // Render tag
            return builder.ToString(TagRenderMode.SelfClosing);

Answer 3

You could have a look at the fubu spin-off for creating HTML Tags. Here is a SO question that talks a bit about its usage.

Answer 4

You could write the ToHtmlString() method yourself as a extension method on StringBuilder.