String.Format HTML

Question

string.format creates a very odd result on the html below. I believe it is something to do with the inline if block but I haven't figured it out yet. Please help!

String.Format(@"<input type='text' 
                       name='PostalCode' 
                       id='PostalCode' 
                       onfocus='if(this.value == '{0}') 
                                {{ this.value = ''; }}' 
                       value='{1}' 
                       class='enter-postal' />", 
              "Enter Postal Code", "Enter Postal Code")

Answer 1

It does nothing strange that I can see, so without knowing what you expect, I'm not sure what the problem is.

I do note a bug in onfocus='if(this.value == '{0}') {{ this.value = ''; }}' in that you've got single quotes in the attribute, and also the JS, which won't work. Try:

String.Format(@"<input type='text' name='PostalCode' id='PostalCode' onfocus=""if(this.value == '{0}') {{ this.value = ''; }}"" value='{1}' class='enter-postal' />",
"Enter Postal Code", "Enter Postal Code")

With variables rather than literals, you'd also want to do .Replace("'", "\\'") so that you don't end up with much the same issue due to an apostrophe in the data.

Answer 2

Here try this one:

String.Format(@"<input type='text' name='PostalCode' id='PostalCode' onfocus='if(this.value == ""{0}"") {{ this.value = """"; }}' value='{1}' class='enter-postal' />", "Enter Postal Code", "Enter Postal Code")

Answer 3

In your onFocus attribute, use escaped double quotes.

String.Format(@"<input type='text' 
                       name='PostalCode' 
                       id='PostalCode' 
                       onfocus=\"if(this.value == '{0}') 
                            {{ this.value = ''; }}\" value='{1}' 
                       class='enter-postal' />", 
              "Enter Postal Code", "Enter Postal Code")