Dynamically create HTML table in C#

Question

Is there more efficient way to build HTML table than the one I\'m trying on right now?

I\'m getting an object and it has some list of entities in it. So I need to pa

Answer 1

I would just like to supplement Steve Harris' answer with a class library that is a little more built out. His answer is a totally elegant solution that made a windows service I was creating not have to reference System.Web for no good reason!

Classes Defined:

  public static class Html
  {
    public class Table : HtmlBase, IDisposable
    {
      public Table(StringBuilder sb, string classAttributes = "", string id = "") : base(sb)
      {
        Append("");
      }

      public void StartFoot(string classAttributes = "", string id = "")
      {
        Append("");
      }

      public void StartBody(string classAttributes = "", string id = "")
      {
        Append("");
      }

      public void Dispose()
      {
        Append("");
      }

      public Row AddRow(string classAttributes = "", string id = "")
      {
        return new Row(GetBuilder(), classAttributes, id);
      }
    }

    public class Row : HtmlBase, IDisposable
    {
      public Row(StringBuilder sb, string classAttributes = "", string id = "") : base(sb)
      {
        Append("");
      }
      public void AddCell(string innerText, string classAttributes = "", string id = "", string colSpan = "")
      {
        Append("");
      }
    }

    public abstract class HtmlBase
    {
      private StringBuilder _sb;

      protected HtmlBase(StringBuilder sb)
      {
        _sb = sb;
      }

      public StringBuilder GetBuilder()
      {
        return _sb;
      }

      protected void Append(string toAppend)
      {
        _sb.Append(toAppend);
      }

      protected void AddOptionalAttributes(string className = "", string id = "", string colSpan = "")
      {

        if (!id.IsNullOrEmpty())
        {
          _sb.Append($" id=\"{id}\"");
        }
        if (!className.IsNullOrEmpty())
        {
          _sb.Append($" class=\"{className}\"");
        }
        if (!colSpan.IsNullOrEmpty())
        {
          _sb.Append($" colspan=\"{colSpan}\"");
        }
        _sb.Append(">");
      }
    }
  }

Usage:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
      using (Html.Table table = new Html.Table(sb, id: "some-id"))
      {
        table.StartHead();
        using (var thead = table.AddRow())
        {
          thead.AddCell("Category Description");
          thead.AddCell("Item Description");
          thead.AddCell("Due Date");
          thead.AddCell("Amount Budgeted");
          thead.AddCell("Amount Remaining");
        }
        table.EndHead();
        table.StartBody();
        foreach (var alert in alertsForUser)
        {
          using (var tr = table.AddRow(classAttributes: "someattributes"))
          {
           tr.AddCell(alert.ExtendedInfo.CategoryDescription);
            tr.AddCell(alert.ExtendedInfo.ItemDescription);
            tr.AddCell(alert.ExtendedInfo.DueDate.ToShortDateString());
            tr.AddCell(alert.ExtendedInfo.AmountBudgeted.ToString("C"));
            tr.AddCell(alert.ExtendedInfo.ItemRemaining.ToString("C"));
          }
        }
        table.EndBody();
      }
      return sb.ToString();