Can't convert HTML to plain text: ASP.net

Question

I have below HTML text retrieved from sql server.

"<span style="color: rgb(36, 39, 41); font-family: Arial, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So, first method looks nice and it's easy but is there is any simpler way to write the second function? Both are working well and giving a correct output.</span>"

I want to convert html to plain text and set it on a label in asp.net.

To do this:

I have retrieved data from sql server in Dataset.

Set above retrieved to label

     <h3 id="lblqNotes" runat="server" class="text-questiondata" style="color:#1E90FF">
   </h3>

In code behind:

  lblqNotes.InnerText = System.Net.WebUtility.HtmlDecode(values[2]);

But output on label is still html code, not plain text.

Thanks for your help.

Do you mean HtmlEncode? https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/w3te6wfz(v=vs.110).aspx — TigOldBitties, Dec 11 '16 at 13:17
"HTML encoding makes sure that text is displayed correctly in the browser and not interpreted by the browser as HTML. For example, if a text string contains a less than sign (), the browser would interpret these characters as the opening or closing bracket of an HTML tag. When the characters are HTML encoded, they are converted to the strings < and >, which causes the browser to display the less than sign and greater than sign correctly." — TigOldBitties, Dec 11 '16 at 13:22
Understood. But that's not what I am looking for. What I need to do is to convert it into plain text. For ex: HTML hello. output should be hello in bold — Dheeraj Kumar, Dec 11 '16 at 13:24
you mean Raw? https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg480740(v=vs.118).aspx or decode? https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httputility.htmldecode(v=vs.110).aspx — TigOldBitties, Dec 11 '16 at 13:26
It's a library like any other that you can reference. It would be overkill in this case, but you didn't say you're not using mvc. — TigOldBitties, Dec 11 '16 at 13:38
How about you change lblqNotes.InnerText to lblqNotes.InnerHtml? — TigOldBitties, Dec 11 '16 at 13:41

Kevin Smith · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-11T13:50:59.183

2

You can achieve this by using the XmlDocument:

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();
        var html = @"<span style=""color: rgb(36, 39, 41); font - family: Arial, &quot; Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, sans - serif; font - size: 15px; background - color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "">So, first method looks nice and it's easy but is there is any simpler way to write the second function? Both are working well and giving a correct output.</span>";
        xmlDocument.LoadXml(html);

        var text = xmlDocument.InnerText;
        // So, first method looks nice and it's easy but is there is any simpler way to write the second function? Both are working well and giving a correct output.
    }

edited Dec 11 '16 at 13:50

answered Dec 11 '16 at 13:43

Kevin Smith

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Amazing. Simplest thing to do. Just a question. How do I use "@" with a variable which has html code in LoadXmL method like xmlDocument.LoadXml(@)?? – Dheeraj Kumar Dec 11 '16 at 13:48
@ is just a verbatim string, I've updated the question to pull out that variable – Kevin Smith Dec 11 '16 at 13:51
that works, but in my case I am pulling data from db and storing data into a variable. So how do I put @ to that varibale? I tried this string var= @values[2]; but it throws error. here values[2] have html code. – Dheeraj Kumar Dec 11 '16 at 13:57
Just removed the @ and will work fine for your problem – Kevin Smith Dec 11 '16 at 14:01
But in case where I have multiple tags in a variable, like this: I have a given String that represents the age in format:
, It throws error saying there are multiple root elements. Any suggestion for this? – Dheeraj Kumar Dec 11 '16 at 14:06
Just wrap the whole bock in a tag – Kevin Smith Dec 11 '16 at 14:26

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '16 at 13:20

0

Try this code to strip out the Html by using a regex : output = Regex.Replace(source, "<[^>]*>", string.Empty);

answered Dec 11 '16 at 13:20

Voice Of The Rain

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This makes me think of this beauty http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags – TigOldBitties Dec 11 '16 at 13:21
It is just for stripping html characters. What I need to do is to convert it into plain text. For ex: HTML hello. output should be hello in bold. – Dheeraj Kumar Dec 11 '16 at 13:23
What you need is an Html parser check this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/56107/what-is-the-best-way-to-parse-html-in-c – Voice Of The Rain Dec 11 '16 at 13:26

Can't convert HTML to plain text: ASP.net

2 Answers2