VB.net Fill Textbox with HTML string

Question

I have a string from an HTML enabled email of something like so:

</div><span color="red">Hi how are you?!</span></div><table><tr><td>Company Information</td></tr></table>

and so on [its a long string of stuff but you get the idea. There are <div>..<spans>..<table> and so forth.

I want to display the text in the text box formatted like html [which will format it based on the <table>..<span> and so forth while removing the actual text of <span> and so forth from the textbox's text.

I need this to happen because I get a page error because it reads the <span> and etc as being a security issue.

My current way of reading the whole text and removing the issues are like so:

        If Not DsAds.Tables(0).Rows(0).Item(0) Is DBNull.Value Then
            Dim bodyInitial As String = DsAds.Tables(0).Rows(0).Item(0).ToString()

            Dim newbody As String = bodyInitial.Replace("<br>", vbNewLine)
            newbody = newbody.Replace("<b>", "")
            newbody = newbody.Replace("</b>", "")
            Bodylisting.Text = newbody
        End If

I tried to encorporate the following:

Dim bodyInitial As String = DsAds.Tables(0).Rows(0).Item(0).ToString()
        Dim myEncodedString As String
        ' Encode the string.
        myEncodedString = bodyInitial.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(bodyInitial)

        Dim myWriter As New StringWriter()
        ' Decode the encoded string.
        HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(bodyInitial, myWriter)

but I get errors with HTTpUtility and strings

Question:

So my question is, is there a way to actually see the HTML formatting and fill the textbox that way, or do I have to stick with my .Replace method?

<asp:TextBox ID="Bodylisting" runat="server" style="float:left; margin:10px; padding-bottom:500px;" Width="95%" TextMode="MultiLine" ></asp:TextBox>

InbetweenWeekends · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-17 20:30:02Z

1

I suggest you investigate HtmlAgilityPack. This library includes a parser giving you the ability to 'select' the <span> tags. Once you have them, you can strip them out, or grab the InnerHtml and do further processing. This is an example of how I do something similar with it.

    Private Shared Function StripHtml(html As String, xPath As String) As String
        Dim htmlDoc As New HtmlDocument()
        htmlDoc.LoadHtml(html)
        If xPath.Length > 0 Then
            Dim invalidNodes As HtmlNodeCollection = htmlDoc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes(xPath)
            If Not invalidNodes Is Nothing Then
                For Each node As HtmlNode In invalidNodes
                    node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node, True)
                Next
            End If
        End If
        Return htmlDoc.DocumentNode.WriteContentTo()


    End Function

answered Nov 17, 2015 at 20:30

InbetweenWeekends

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8 Comments

narue1992 Over a year ago

Thank you for your suggestions and references. I will play with the following coding. Once again, I appreciate it!

narue1992 Over a year ago

Also, if you don't mind me asking, what Import do you use to define New HtmlDocument() ?

InbetweenWeekends Over a year ago

Glad I could help Imports HtmlAgilityPack will let you get to HtmlDocument

narue1992 Over a year ago

When I put Imports HtmlAgilityPack HtmlAgilityPack has a green line under it with no suggestions as if it doesn't exist

InbetweenWeekends Over a year ago

Did you download the file and add a reference to the DLL to your project?

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