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asp.net-mvc-3razor

How to make Html.DisplayFor display line breaks?

Embarrassingly newbie question:

I have a string field in my model that contains line breaks. 

@Html.DisplayFor(x => x.MultiLineText)

does not display the line breaks.

Obviously I could do some fiddling in the model and create another field that replaces \n with <br/>, but that seems kludgy. What's the textbook way to make this work?

Solution

  • A HtmlHelper extension method to display string values with line breaks: 

    public static MvcHtmlString DisplayWithBreaksFor<TModel, TValue>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> html, Expression<Func<TModel, TValue>> expression)
{
    var metadata = ModelMetadata.FromLambdaExpression(expression, html.ViewData);
    var model = html.Encode(metadata.Model).Replace("\r\n", "<br />\r\n");

    if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(model))
        return MvcHtmlString.Empty;

    return MvcHtmlString.Create(model);
}

    And then you can use the following syntax:

    @Html.DisplayWithBreaksFor(m => m.MultiLineField)