Question

My program generates HTML via stringbuilder.

         sbHTMLHeader.Append("<div id=\"printableContent\">");
         sbHTMLHeader.Append("<div id=\"packingSlipHeader\">");
         sbHTMLHeader.Append("<div class=\"floatLeft\"><img src=\"../images/logo.gif\" alt=\"Logo\" /></div>");
//...
if (!orderType.Equals("L"))
            {
                sbHTMLHeader.Append("     <td>" + orderData.Tables[0].Rows[0]["carrier"] + "</td>" + Environment.NewLine);
                //...
            }
            else
            {
                sbHTMLHeader.Append("     <td></td>" + Environment.NewLine);
                 //...
            }
//...

380 lines later, I am passionitely against this code. In the past, I used Altova Stylevision. At my current job we have no license for the product. I don’t need any of the PDF or other templates it provides, just HTML. Can you suggest a powerful, readable alternative to generate HTML such as above?

Answer 1

An alternative would be to store all the data in an XML file and write an XSLT (transformation sheet) that turns it into HTML.