Extracting HTML from a WebControl

[Russ]

Hi,

I have created a Table webcontrol dynamically using code. Before rendering
it, I need to get at the HTML and do a couple of things manually. I've
tried a couple of methods to extract the HTML but things aren't working as
expected.

Dim W As New System.IO.StringWriter
Dim TS As New HtmlTextWriter(W)
Dim S as String
Table.RenderControl(TS)
W.Write(S)

When I run this, S = nothing, but the table renders fine on the page.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Russ

[Toby Mathews]

Russ,

Why do you need to extract the HTML? There may be another way to achieve
what you want without doing this.

Toby Mathews

"Russ" <ru**@UKS.com> wrote in message
news:eR**************@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

Hi,

I have created a Table webcontrol dynamically using code. Before rendering it, I need to get at the HTML and do a couple of things manually. I've
tried a couple of methods to extract the HTML but things aren't working as
expected.

Dim W As New System.IO.StringWriter
Dim TS As New HtmlTextWriter(W)
Dim S as String
Table.RenderControl(TS)
W.Write(S)

When I run this, S = nothing, but the table renders fine on the page.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Russ

[Steven Cheng[MSFT]]

Hi Russ,

As for getting the output html of a webcontrol, the code you used is
correct , just one thing missed. We need to use a StringBuilder to
construct the StringWriter and after rendering the control into the
HtmlTextWriter, we cna get the control's output in the StringBuilder. For
example:

=========================================
Table tb = new Table();
tb.ID = "tbl";
tb.Rows.Add(new TableRow());
tb.Rows.Add(new TableRow());
tb.Rows[0].Cells.Add(new TableCell());
tb.Rows[1].Cells.Add(new TableCell());

System.Text.StringBuilder sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
System.IO.StringWriter sw = new System.IO.StringWriter(sb);
HtmlTextWriter htw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);

tb.RenderControl(htw);

Response.Write("<br>" + HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(sb.ToString()));

htw.Close();
sw.Close();
==================================

In addition, it is ok to retrieve the outputhtml of a control, however,
haven't means to easiliy replace the ouput which will be rendered in the
page. If you want to make some customizing on the control's output, it's
better that we override the control. Thanks.

Regards,

Steven Cheng
Microsoft Online Support

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