HtmlTextWriter to String - Am I overlooking something?

Question

Perhaps I\'m going about this all wrong (and please tell me if I am), but I\'m hitting my head against a wall with something that seems like a really simple concept.

Answer 1

Alternate method using relfection:

private string GetString(HtmlTextWriter writer) 
{
   // the flags to see the internal properties of the writer
   System.Reflection.BindingFlags flags = System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Default;
   flags |= System.Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic;
   flags |= System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance;
   flags |= System.Reflection.BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy;
   flags |= System.Reflection.BindingFlags.Public;

   // get the information about the internal TextWriter object
   System.Reflection.FieldInfo baseWriter = writer.GetType().GetField("writer", flags);

   // use that info to create a StringWriter
   System.IO.StringWriter reflectedWriter = (System.IO.StringWriter)baseWriter.GetValue(writer);

   // now we get a StringBuilder!
   StringBuilder builder = reflectedWriter.GetStringBuilder();

   return builder.ToString();
}

Then it's a simple matter of re-creating the HtmlTextWriter using the string and a StringBuilder.

This was built using a couple clues I picked up from a conversation between Tom Spink and Rotsey on EggheadCafe