Writing a tag using HTMLTextWriter in C# issue

Question

I'm trying to render a basic HTML webpage using C# and HTMLTextWriter to output to a WebBrower object, but am having issues rendering the <meta> tag in my HTML output.

What I am expecting to be output..

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>My Website</title>
  </head>

  <body>
    <h1>Hello World!</h1>
  </body>

</html>

What is currently being output..

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    </meta charset="UTF-8"><title>
      My Website
    </title>
    </head><body>
    <h1>
      Hello World!
    </h1>
  </body>
</html>

Notice how the <meta> tag is being output as <meta charset="UTF-8"> & </meta charset="UTF-8"> instead of just <meta charset="UTF-8">.

What can I do to correct this issue?

Here is the code I am using..

var sw = new StringWriter();
using (var writer = new HtmlTextWriter(sw)) {
    writer.RenderBeginTag("!DOCTYPE html");
    writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Html);
        writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Head);
            writer.RenderBeginTag("meta charset=\"UTF-8\"");
            writer.RenderEndTag();
            writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Title);
                writer.Write("SIT323 - My Website");
            writer.RenderEndTag();
        writer.RenderEndTag();
        writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Body);
            writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.H1);
                writer.Write("Hello World!");
            writer.RenderEndTag();
        writer.RenderEndTag();
    writer.RenderEndTag();
};
return sw.ToString();

Ramin Bateni · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-26T15:01:19.920

4

Try it:

writer.AddAttribute("charset", "UTF-8");
writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Meta);
// Other needed methods...
writer.RenderEndTag();

Result:

<meta charset="UTF-8">

The coding pattern for rendering markup elements is as follows:

Use the AddAttribute method to add any attributes to the element.
Use the RenderBeginTag method.
Use other methods as needed to render the content found between the element's opening and closing tags.
Use the RenderEndTag method.

edited Jul 26 '16 at 15:01

answered Jul 24 '16 at 09:50

Ramin Bateni

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Perfect! Thank you. – TheAuzzieJesus Jul 24 '16 at 09:57
@TheAuzzieJesus, please look at the answer code again. Notic you **should** use `RenderEndTag()` after `RenderBeginTag(...)`. In the other words you should finally use a `RenderEndTag()` after each `RenderBeginTag(...)`. Although you can have other methods as needed between them. – Ramin Bateni Jul 24 '16 at 10:07
Thank you, I managed to figure it out through trial-and-error luckily. – TheAuzzieJesus Jul 24 '16 at 10:26
@RAM did you actually try your example? to me it gives me , (self closing), whereas meta does not need />, it should just be a close > – joedotnot Sep 26 '20 at 11:20
@joedotnot, meta tag with self closing supports by all browsers but you can use `writer.RenderBeginTag(@"meta charset=""utf-8""");` instead of it. – Ramin Bateni Sep 27 '20 at 18:07

Writing a tag using HTMLTextWriter in C# issue

1 Answers1