Display string as html in asp.net mvc view

I have a controller which generates a string containing html markup. When it displays on views, it is displayed as a simple string containing all tags.

I tried to use an Html helper to encode/decode to display it properly, but it is not working.

string str= "<a href="/Home/Profile/seeker">seeker</a> has applied to <a href="/Jobs/Details/9">Job</a> floated by you.</br>";

On my views,

@Html.Encode(str)

You are close you want to use @Html.Raw(str)

@Html.Encode takes strings and ensures that all the special characters are handled properly. These include characters like spaces.

You should be using IHtmlString instead:

IHtmlString str = new HtmlString("<a href="/Home/Profile/seeker">seeker</a> has applied to <a href="/Jobs/Details/9">Job</a> floated by you.</br>");

Whenever you have model properties or variables that need to hold HTML, I feel this is generally a better practice. First of all, it is a bit cleaner. For example:

@Html.Raw(str)

Compared to:

@str

Also, I also think it's a bit safer vs. using @Html.Raw(), as the concern of whether your data is HTML is kept in your controller. In an environment where you have front-end vs. back-end developers, your back-end developers may be more in tune with what data can hold HTML values, thus keeping this concern in the back-end (controller).

I generally try to avoid using Html.Raw() whenever possible.

One other thing worth noting, is I'm not sure where you're assigning str, but a few things that concern me with how you may be implementing this.

First, this should be done in a controller, regardless of your solution (IHtmlString or Html.Raw). You should avoid any logic like this in your view, as it doesn't really belong there.

Additionally, you should be using your ViewModel for getting values to your view (and again, ideally using IHtmlString as the property type). Seeing something like @Html.Encode(str) is a little concerning, unless you were doing this just to simplify your example.

you can use @Html.Raw(str)

See MSDN for more

> Returns markup that is not HTML encoded. > > This method wraps HTML markup using the IHtmlString class, which > renders unencoded HTML.

I had a similar problem with HTML input fields in MVC. The web paged only showed the first keyword of the field. Example: input field: "The quick brown fox" Displayed value: "The"

The resolution was to put the variable in quotes in the value statement as follows:

<input class="ParmInput" type="text" id="respondingRangerUnit" name="respondingRangerUnit"
       onchange="validateInteger(this.value)" value="@ViewBag.respondingRangerUnit">

I had a similar problem recently, and google landed me here, so I put this answer here in case others land here as well, for completeness.

I noticed that when I had badly formatted html, I was actually having all my html tags stripped out, with just the non-tag content remaining. I particularly had a table with a missing opening table tag, and then all my html tags from the entire string where ripped out completely.

So, if the above doesn't work, and you're still scratching your head, then also check you html for being valid.

I notice even after I got it working, MVC was adding tbody tags where I had none. This tells me there is clean up happening (MVC 5), and that when it can't happen, it strips out all/some tags.