Question

I have a string with special characters insert in different places. For example:

string myString = "This is a textbox: ##";

I would like to replace the ## with a control (namely, a textbox).

The Replace method only allows the string to be replaced with another string or character (understandably). But what would be the best way to dynamically replace the ## with a control in its position?

I was thinking maybe I could replace it with HTML markup which would be executed, but not quite sure how that would be achieved.

Thanks

EDIT: To clarify some details. The strings are being retrieved from a database, so I can’t use the PlaceHolder control. The user selects a string from a drop-down list. The value of the item is the string with special characters. When the postback occurs from the item selection, I would like to display the string on the site, but replace the special characters with a fully working control (in this case, a textbox)

Answer 1

Consider leveraging the TextBox’s Render() method. That’ll get you the HTML that would be output from that TextBox.

You can then use that string to be the replacement text to replace the ## portion of your string.

TextBox Render() on MSDN

var myTxtBox = new TextBox();
myTxtBox.Text = "Hello World";

//implement the Render code in here
string myRenderedTextBoxHTML = RenderIt(myTxtBox); 

string myString = "This is a textbox: " + myRenderedTextBoxHTML;

I’m unsure ViewState would be available for this control or not.