Question

I am using ASP.MVC 3. I have a view that has a textarea on it. I captures data in it, and when I want a new paragraph I wil press enter twice. After all my data is entered I save the text to the database.

In my details view I would display the data in a like:

<tr>
   <td valign="top"><label>Body:</label></td>
   <td>@Model.Body</td>
</tr>

Now the text displays as 1 paragraph even though in my textarea (when I captured the data) it seemed liked paragraphs.

How would I get the data to display as paragraphs in my table like what I captured it in my textarea. I’m assuming that I have to search for carriage returns and replace them with break tags?

Answer 1

I’m assuming that I have to search for carriage returns and replace them with break tags?

Yes, your assumption is correct. You could use a custom HTML helper:

public static IHtmlString FormatBody(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string value)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
    {
        return MvcHtmlString.Empty;
    }
    var lines = value.Split('\n'); // Might need to adapt
    return htmlHelper.Raw(
        string.Join("<br/>", lines.Select(line => htmlHelper.Encode(line)))
    );
}

and then:

@Html.FormatBody(Model.Body)

---

UPDATE:

And here’s an example of how this method could be unit tested:

[TestMethod]
public void FormatBody_should_split_lines_with_br_and_html_encode_them()
{
    // arrange
    var viewContext = new ViewContext();
    var helper = new HtmlHelper(viewContext, MockRepository.GenerateStub<IViewDataContainer>());
    var body = "line1\nline2\nline3<>\nline4";

    // act
    var actual = helper.FormatBody(body);

    // assert
    var expected = "line1<br/>line2<br/>line3&lt;&gt;<br/>line4";
    Assert.AreEqual(expected, actual.ToHtmlString());
}