Question

When I try and display text from an the InnerText from an XML element. I get something like this:

I need this spacing \r\n\r\n\r\second lot of spacing\r\n\r\nMore spacing\r\n\r\n

I know you can replace \r\n with <br> but is there no function that automatically takes the html for you and why does it use \r and \n? Many thanks.

Answer 1

You can use <pre> tag – it will show the text as-is like you see it in text editor:

For example:

<pre><%=MyText%></pre>

Better practice for ASP.NET is:

<pre id="myPlaceholder" runat="server"></pre>

Then assign its value from code behind:

myPlaceholder.InnerHtml = MyText;

As for your question “why does it use \r and \n” those are carriage return and line feed characters, aka newline characters – when you have such text:

line 1
line 2

Then code reading it will give: line1\nline2 or line1\r\nline2 depending on how it’s stored exactly.