How can I insert HTML tags in C# string property?

Question

Not sure how if it is possible, but I have this in a class:

public string TextNotIncluded 
{ 
    get
    { 
        return ("which is <u>not</u> included in the Quote");
    }
}

The <u> and </u> are being displayed in my view, rather than the word not being underlined. I am not familiar with C#.

Can anyone provide a quick answer?

Thanks.

Edit:

I am just calling this in my view thusly: @MyClass.TextNotIncluded. Wrapping it with @Html.Raw is not efficient in my case because I have this sprinkled throughout dozens of views.

It depends what control you're outputting that string in. I'd guess that whatever you're using does not parse HTML markup. — tnw
– tnw, Commented Apr 15, 2013 at 20:38
show us how you are consuming this property from your MVC view or controller — Davide Piras
– Davide Piras, Commented Apr 15, 2013 at 20:39

p.s.w.g · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-15 21:12:30Z

10

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with doing that but it probably won't render the way you're expecting.

You can use @Html.Raw as others have suggested, but I think it's better to explicitly declare your model in such a way as to indicate that it may contain html. You probably want to use the MvcHtmlString class for this instead:

public MvcHtmlString TextNotIncluded 
{ 
    get { return MvcHtmlString.Create("which is <u>not</u> included in the Quote"); }
}

Then in your view you can just use:

@Model.TextNotIncluded

edited Apr 15, 2013 at 21:12

answered Apr 15, 2013 at 20:39

p.s.w.g

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4 Comments

Silvermind Over a year ago

+1 For altering the property's return type, since it is returning html anyway I would vote for a change at the source too.

Joe Enos Over a year ago

As a side-note, this assumes that your model is specific to your MVC project - if your model lives in a DTO or data layer, it wouldn't make sense for a property to be an MvcHtmlString.

REMESQ Over a year ago

Thanks. Also, thanks to all the responses. @p.s.w.g's answer was most complete in that it gave sound reasoning for declaring in my model (plus, if I use this 100 times, it's technically less code/characters). +1 to all the other good suggestions.

p.s.w.g Over a year ago

@JoeEnos true, but FWIW, you probably want to separate your view models from your data models anyway.

Joe Enos · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-15 20:39:41Z

7

If you're using Razor, strings are HTML-encoded by default - you'll need to use Html.Raw to turn off the encoding:

@Html.Raw(x.TextNotIncluded)

In the ASPX engine, you would use <%= %>

<%= x.TextNotIncluded %> - this gives you the raw text
<%: x.TextNotIncluded %> - this HTML-encodes your text - you don't want this.

answered Apr 15, 2013 at 20:39

Joe Enos

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Comments

Oded · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-15 20:39:14Z

4

To output raw HTML, use the Raw HTML helper:

@Html.Raw(TextNotIncluded)

This helper doesn't HTML encode the input, so be careful when using it.

answered Apr 15, 2013 at 20:39

Oded

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1 Comment

Joe Enos Over a year ago

+1 on the "be careful" part - raw HTML opens you up to possible attacks if the text is user-generated.

Dustin Laine · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-15 20:41:02Z

1

You need to HTML encode the string. Most are recommending the MVC approach, but I would make it more independent of the presentation layer.

public string TextNotIncluded { 
    get { 
        return System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode("which is <u>not</u> included in the Quote"); 
    }
}

answered Apr 15, 2013 at 20:41

Dustin Laine

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1 Comment

Joe Enos Over a year ago

This is backward. This would make the property's value which is <u>not</u> included, so if you tried to put that on the page, you'd either see it double-encoded or as plain text, but you'd never see it was underlined text.

Silvermind · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-15 21:29:11Z

1

You can use either

@Html.Raw(Model.TextNotIncluded)

or

@MvcHtmlString.Create(Model.TextNotIncluded)

in your view.

But it would be better to alter the return type of the property:

public MvcHtmlString TextNotIncluded
{
    get
    {
        return MvcHtmlString.Create("which is <u>not</u> included in the Quote");
    }
}

edited Apr 15, 2013 at 21:29

answered Apr 15, 2013 at 20:46

Silvermind

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1 Comment

REMESQ Over a year ago

Thanks. Same answer as @p.s.w.g basically, but his came first.

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