HTML.Encode but preserve line breaks

Question

I take user input into a text area, store it and eventually display it back to the user.

In my View (Razor) I want to do something like this...

@Message.         


        

Answer 1

If you find yourself using this more than once it may be helpful to wrap it in a custom HtmlHelper like this:

namespace Helpers
{
    public static class ExtensionMethods
    {
        public static IHtmlString PreserveNewLines(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper, string message)
        {
            return message == null ? null : htmlHelper.Raw(htmlHelper.Encode(message).Replace("\n", "
"));
        }
    }
}

You'll then be able to use your custom HtmlHelper like this:

@Html.PreserveNewLines(Message)

Keep in mind that you'll need to add a using to your Helpers namespace for the HtmlHelper to be available.