Question

Does anyone know how to disable auto parsing of chars such as “>” so that they never show up as “&qt;” when they are displayed in the browser? I thought that it was just related to xml parsing but it appears to be a global issue where VS uses “intelligent” parsing of strings and sometimes displays them as the actual char and sometimes converts them. Any suggestions?

Ex. 1:

C#:

public string kmlStuff = "";
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        kmlStuff="]]>";
    }

Aspx:

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
    <div id="errorM">
        <%=kmlStuff %>
    </div>
</asp:Content>

Html of browser output (is wrong):

<div id="errorM">
    ]]&gt;
</div>

What I want to show up:

<div id="errorM">
        ]]>
</div>

Ex. 2:

C#:

public string kmlStuff = "";
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        kmlStuff="<div></div>";
    }

Aspx:

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
    <div id="errorM">
        <%=kmlStuff %>
    </div>
</asp:Content>

Html of browser output (is right):

<div id="errorM">
<div></div>
</div>

Answer 1

Use this

c#

public string kmlStuff = "";
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        kmlStuff= Server.HtmlEncode("]]>");
    }


ASpx

<asp:Content ID="Content2" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent" runat="server">
    <div id="errorM">
        <%=Server.HtmlDecode(kmlStuff) %>
    </div>
</asp:Content>

**Sample:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
public partial class _Default : Page
{
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    // This could mess up HTML.
    string text = "you & me > them"; // 1
    // Replace > with >
    string htmlEncoded = Server.HtmlEncode(text); // 2
    // Now has the > again.
    string original = Server.HtmlDecode(htmlEncoded); // 3
    // This is how you can access the Server in any class.
    string alsoEncoded = HttpContext.Current.Server.HtmlEncode(text); // 4
    StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
    using (HtmlTextWriter writer = new HtmlTextWriter(stringWriter))
    {
        // Write a DIV with encoded text.
        writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Div);
        writer.WriteEncodedText(text);
        writer.RenderEndTag();
    }
    string html = stringWriter.ToString(); // 5
    }
}

**