How to render decoded HTML in a (i.e. a <br>) in GridView cell

Question

I'm binding a GridView to an LINQ query. Some of the fields in the objects created by the LINQ statement are strings, and need to contain new lines.

Apparently, GridView HTML-encodes everything in each cell, so I can't insert a <br /> to create a new line within a cell.

How do I tell GridView not to HTML encode the contents of cells?

Maybe I should use a different control instead?

Answer 1

Can you subscribe to the RowDataBound event? If you can, you can run:

if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
{
  string decodedText = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(e.Row.Cells[0].Text);
  e.Row.Cells[0].Text = decodedText;
}

Answer 2

What about setting the HtmlEncode property to false? To me, this is much simpler.

<asp:BoundField DataField="MyColumn" HtmlEncode="False" />

Answer 3

Are normal newlines preserved in output? If so, you can send the newlines, and use the css style white-space: pre, which would preserve newlines, spaces and tabs.

Answer 4

protected void GridView1_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{

    for (int i = 0; i < e.Row.Cells.Count; i++)
    {
        if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
        {
            string decodedText = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(e.Row.Cells[i].Text);
            e.Row.Cells[i].Text = decodedText;
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

Booysen's answer works but only for one column. If you run a loop in the RowDataBound event, you can substitute a variable for the [0] and have this work on each column if you want. Here's what I did:

protected void gridCart_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
    for (int i = 1; i < 4; i++)
    {
        if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
        {
            string decode = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(e.Row.Cells[i].Text);
            e.Row.Cells[i].Text = decode;
        }
    }
}

Mine is deliberately started at 1 because of my data, but obviously it will work with whatever you need.

Answer 6

I got around this by first inserting the data into my sql-server table from a multi-line textbox using

   replace (txt = Replace(txt, vbCrLf,"<br />"))

Then I used Ray Booysen's solution to return it to my gridview:

 Protected Sub grdHist_RowDataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridViewRowEventArgs) Handles grdHist.RowDataBound

      Dim col1 As String = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(e.Row.Cells(2).Text)

      e.Row.Cells(2).Text = col1

End Sub

Answer 7

protected void gvHead_OnRowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e) {
  for (int i = 0; i < e.Row.Cells.Count; i++) 
    e.Row.Cells[i].Text = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(e.Row.Cells[i].Text);
}

Answer 8

You have to bind to the the DataBoundGrid event and change the Rendering for the columns you want to render HTML code.

public event EventHandler DataBoundGrid {
  add { ctlOverviewGridView.DataBound += value; }
  remove { ctlOverviewGridView.DataBound -= value; }
}

ctlOverview.DataBoundGrid += (sender, args) => {
  ((sender as ASPxGridView).Columns["YourColumnName"] as GridViewDataTextColumn).PropertiesTextEdit.EncodeHtml = false;
};

Answer 9

@Ray Booysen answers is right but in some cases HtmlDecode() can't handle your problem. you can use UrlDecode() instead of HtmlDecode().
here is another solution:

if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
{
  string decodedText = HttpUtility.UrlDecode(e.Row.Cells[0].Text);
  e.Row.Cells[0].Text = decodedText;
}