Parsing ASP.Net controls to HTML markup

[travisowens]

I have a table object that I created in my application and I need to extract the HTML markup from it. Is there a way to have ASP.Net parse Web Controls to HTML markup so I can munipulate the markup within my application?

 

I need something generic, not specific to just Table objects.

 

If nothing existis internal to .Net (but I would be surprised if the ASP.Net rendering engine isn't exposed) then I would need a free solution (even if I have to roll my own). Preferably I would hope if the HTML engine is exposed it would also render the HTML in a way compatible to the current user's browser, like how ASP.Net web forms work already.

[Derek Stone]

Yes, simply render the controls.

 

[url=http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfSystemWebUIControlClassRenderControlTopic.asp]Control.RenderControl[/url](writer)

[travisowens]

At this point I'm experimenting with the following code but my HTML just doesn't seem to be generating. I'm doing a response write to see if the HTML is being written.

 

			Table menu = new Table();
		TableRow row = new TableRow();
		TableCell cell = new TableCell();
		cell.Text = "TestCell";
		row.Cells.Add(cell);
		menu.Rows.Add(row);
		
		String body = String.Empty;
		String subject = String.Empty;
		//Control control = null;
		StringWriter sw = new StringWriter();
		HtmlTextWriter writer = new HtmlTextWriter(sw);

		menu.RenderControl(writer);
		body = sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
		
		if (writer != null) writer.Close();
		if (sw != null) sw.Close();
		
		Response.Write(body);

Edited August 5, 2004 by travisowens