Question

I want do something like that:

public class MyClass
{
    public String varA{ get; set; }
    public String[] varB{ get; set; }

    //.....
    public ?? string ToHtml()
    {
        //return HTML value
    }
}

public class Run()
{
    MyClass c = new Myclass();
    c.varA = "Toto";
    c.varB = new string[] { "foo", "bar" };

    string a = c.varA.ToHtml() // -> "<p>Toto</p>";
    string b = c.varB.ToHtml() // -> "<ul><li>foo</li><li>bar</li></ul>";
}

How can do that ?

Edit: I have change the Run()

Answer 1

This is a way to implement your scenario with extension methods. While, as others have noted, it would make sense to keep the logic to turn your strings to HTML within MyClass, in certain scenarios it might make sense to use this approach.

public class MyClass
{
    public String varA{ get; set; }
    public String[] varB{ get; set; }           
}

public static class MyExtensions {
    public static string ToHtml(this string input, string format)
    {
        return string.Format(format, input);
    }

    public static string ToHtml(this string input)
    {
        return ToHtml(input,"<p>{0}</p>");
    }

    public static string ToHtml(this IEnumerable<string> input, string wrapperformat, string elementformat)
    {
        string body= input
                        .Select(s => string.Format(elementformat,s))
                        .Aggregate((a,b)=> a+b);
        return string.Format(wrapperformat,body);
    }

    public static string ToHtml(this IEnumerable<string> input)
    {
        return ToHtml(input,"<ul>{0}</ul>","<li>{0}</li>");         
    }
}