Editing HTML and replacing certain texts inside it using c#

Question

In my C# WinForms program I want to generate a report as HTML. What I am doing now is using StringBuilder and TextWriter and write all html codes and save the file as HTML. It is working but I want to enhance the workflow.

So my idea is having a HTML template with certain texts that are going to be replaced by a special tag or something (I have worked with Smarty template before, so I mean something like that).

Imagine the HTML code below:

        <tr>
        <td style="height: 80px; background-color:#F4FAFF">
        <span class="testPropertiesTitle">Test Properties</span>
        <br /><br />
        <span class="headerComment"><b>Test Mode:</b>&nbsp;[TestMode]</span>    
        <br /><br />    
        <span class="headerComment"><b>Referenced DUT:</b>&nbsp;[RefDUT]</span> 
        <br /><br />                        
        <span class="headerComment"><b>Voltage Failure Limit:</b>&nbsp;[VoltageLimit]</span>            
        <br /><br />
        <span class="headerComment"><b>Current Failure Limit:</b>&nbsp;[CurrentLimit]</span>
        <br /><br />
        <span class="headerComment"><b>Test Mode:</b>[TestMode]&nbsp;</span>                        
        </td>
    </tr>

So basically what I want to do is replace a text between [] in the above html with certain strings that has been produced in my C# program.

Any ideas, code snippets, links to tuturial and etc... will be appriciated!

Answer 1

There is so much danger parsing HTML with regex or quick and dirty replaces. So many things can go wrong if the HTML has been properly "prepared" (which is a diffcult thing to do with 100% certainty.) The HTML Agility Pack mentioned in Milde's answer is a great way to go but it might feel like using a sledgehammer to crack open a nut.

However, if you are confident of the HTML that will be parsed, then the following should be able to get you going quickly:

     string strTextToReplace = "<tr><td style=\"height: 80px; background-color:#F4FAFF\"> <span class=\"testPropertiesTitle\">Test Properties</span><br /><br /><span class=\"headerComment\"><b>Test Mode:</b>&nbsp;[TestMode]</span><br /><br /><span class=\"headerComment\"><b>Referenced DUT:</b>&nbsp;[RefDUT]</span><br/><br/><span class=\"headerComment\"><b>Voltage Failure Limit:</b>&nbsp;[VoltageLimit]</span><br /><br /><span class=\"headerComment\"><b>Current Failure Limit:</b>&nbsp;[CurrentLimit]</span><br /><br /><span class=\"headerComment\"><b>Test Mode:</b>[TestMode]&nbsp;</span>  </td></tr>";

            Regex re = new Regex(@"\[(.*?)\]");
            MatchCollection mc = re.Matches(strTextToReplace);
            foreach (Match m in mc)
            {
                switch (m.Value)
                {
                    case "[TestMode]":
                        strTextToReplace = strTextToReplace.Replace(m.Value, "-- New Test Mode --");
                        break;
                    case "[RefDUT]":
                        strTextToReplace = strTextToReplace.Replace(m.Value, "-- New Ref DUT --");
                        break;
                    //Add additional CASE statements here
                    default:
                        break;
                }
            }