Question

I have an ASP TextBox with TextMode set to MultiLine. I’m having problems with preserving the vbCrLf characters when a user tries to put line breaks into the text. When a button on the page is pressed, I’m taking the text from the control, trimming it using String.Trim, and assigning that value to a String property on an object (which, in turn assigns it to a private internal String variable on the object). The object then takes the value from the private internal variable and throws it into the database using a stored procedure call (the SP parameter it is put into is an nvarchar(4000)).

ASPX Page:

<asp:UpdatePanel ID="UpdatePanel2" runat="server" RenderMode="Inline" UpdateMode="Conditional"
                ChildrenAsTriggers="true">
  <ContentTemplate>
    <!-- some other controls and things -->
    <asp:TextBox TextMode="MultiLine" runat="server" ID="txtComments" Width="100%" Height="60px" CssClass="TDTextArea" Style="border: 0px;" MaxLength="2000" />
    <!-- some other controls and things -->
  </ContentTemplate>
</asp:UpdatePanel>

code behind:

ProjectRequest.StatusComments = txtComments.Text.Trim

object property:

Protected mStatusComments As String = String.Empty
Property StatusComments() As String
  Get
    Return mStatusComments.Trim
  End Get
  Set(ByVal Value As String)
    mStatusComments = Value
  End Set
End Property

stored proc call:

  Common.RunSP(mDBConnStr, "ProjectStatusUpdate", _
    Common.MP("@UID", SqlDbType.NVarChar, 40, mUID), _
    Common.MP("@ProjID", SqlDbType.VarChar, 40, mID), _
    Common.MP("@StatusID", SqlDbType.Int, 8, mStatusID), _
    Common.MP("@Comments", SqlDbType.NVarChar, 4000, mStatusComments), _
    Common.MP("@PCTComp", SqlDbType.Int, 4, 0), _
    Common.MP("@Type", Common.TDSqlDbType.TinyInt, 1, EntryType))

Here’s the strangest part. When I debug the code, if I type

“test
test”

(without the quotes) into the comments text box, then click the save button and use the immediate window to view the variable values as I step through, here is what I get:

?txtComments.Text
"test test"
?txtComments.Text.Trim
"test
test"
?txtComments.Text(4)
"
"c
?txtComments.Text.Trim()(4)
"
"c

Anyone have a clue as to what’s going on here?

Answer 1

There are two problems at bay here. First, the immediate window in VB is converting the non-printable character to a space so you cannot see it. In C#, it will show the character using its replacement escape code (e.g. \n or \r\n), but VB does not. Second, VB sees the break as a line-feed only (vbLf) not a carriage-return+line-feed (vbCrLf). Thus, if you do the following in break mode in the immediate window you will see what I mean (assuming you type test, hit Enter, test in the comments box):

?txtComments.Text.Substring(4,1) = vbLf
True