Create HTML webpage programmatically in C#

Question

I was wondering: is there a way to create HTML files programmatically in C# as you can do with XML? Mine is a console application, so maybe some of the options are not available. Basically, I would like to do something smarter than just building a big string.

Possible scenario:

Instead of writing:

     string html="<html><head>Blah</head><body>{0}</html>", myotherstring

I would like to work as in XML

     XmlTextWriter w = new XmlTextWriter(xml_file_path + xml_file_name,
                                        System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);

     w.WriteProcessingInstruction("xml", "version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'");

     // construct xml
     XmlElement root = xmlDoc.CreateElement("element");

     ...

     xmlDoc.Save(w);
     w.Close();

Apologies for the naive question.

what does smarter mean? Could you describe the scenario?

shahkalpesh
– shahkalpesh

2009-06-01 22:59:04 +00:00
Commented Jun 1, 2009 at 22:59 — shahkalpesh
– shahkalpesh, Commented Jun 1, 2009 at 22:59

Cheeso · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-01 23:11:34Z

7

Don't forget: You can generate XHTML just as easily as plain XML using the XmlTextWriter approach.

answered Jun 1, 2009 at 23:11

Cheeso

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1 Comment

Dervin Thunk Over a year ago

+1 for this. But for my current problem, I found NVelocity met my purposes wonderfully.

Momoro · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-03 05:05:19Z

6

You could use NVelocity. It is a .Net port of the Java Velocity templating system. The API will not be similar to XmlWriter. Instead, you'll write a text file in a simple scripting language, put your objects into a 'context' and then merge the template and the context to generate the HTML file.

NVelocity

edited Feb 3, 2020 at 5:05

Momoro

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answered Jun 1, 2009 at 23:07

Lorin

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2 Comments

Harald Coppoolse Over a year ago

Alas, the links are broken.

Momoro Over a year ago

@HaraldCoppoolse - No worries! I fixed 'em last month.

Sergey Shandar · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-16 12:58:41Z

You could use some third party open-source libraries to generated strong typed verified (X)HTML, such as CityLizard Framework or Sharp DOM.

For example

html
    [head
        [title["Title of the page"]]
        [meta_(
            content: "text/html;charset=UTF-8",
            http_equiv: "Content-Type")
        ]
        [link_(href: "css/style.css", rel: "stylesheet", type: "text/css")]
        [script_(type: "text/javascript", src: "/JavaScript/jquery-1.4.2.min.js")]
    ]
    [body
        [div
            [h1["Test Form to Test"]]
            [form_(action: "post", id: "Form1")
                [div
                    [label["Parameter"]]
                    [input_(type: "text", value: "Enter value")]
                    [input_(type: "submit", value: "Submit!")]
                ]
            ]
            [div
                [p["Textual description of the footer"]]
                [a_(href: "http://google.com/")
                    [span["You can find us here"]]
                ]
                [div["Another nested container"]]
            ]
        ]
    ];

Justin · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-19 06:39:37Z

2

I realise that this question is old, however the recent release of the ASP.Net MVC 3 Razor view engine now gives you the option to use this same Razor view engine to generate HTML for any purpose.

See Hosting Razor outside of ASP.Net for a guide on how to do this.

answered Apr 19, 2011 at 6:39

Justin

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1 Comment

Phil Helix Over a year ago

I've looked at the zip file and it doesn't appear to do much. It certainly doesn't generate any html.

Carlo · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-01 22:58:43Z

0

What I did a few months back, I had an asp.net file (aspx) saved as a template in a text file, whenever the user needed a new page, I would just copy that template into the user specified folder, change the extension .txt to .aspx, and programmatically add a few options depending on the user's needs. It was a simple page though. Of course, the more complex you go, the more complex the code will be.

answered Jun 1, 2009 at 22:58

Carlo

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