I'm using ASP.net MVC C# in Visual Studio Web Dev. I have a couple of textareas which are populated with data and then updated to a database record.

Is it possible to have line breaks saved when a record is updated to the database? I currently view the data on the homepage, but at the moment if someone writes couple of paragraphs (including line breaks) the formatting will be lost.

If this isn't possible no problem, but just wanted to ask if it is. Thanks.

The code on the View page looks like this:

<div class="editor-field">
        @Html.TextAreaFor(model => model.para1, new { cols = 75, @rows = 5 })
        @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.para1)
</div>

I then have a button that submits the form.

The Controller code that handles the submission looks like this:

[HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Update(Data data)
    {
        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            data.ID = 1; //EF need to know which row to update in the database.
            db.Entry(data).State = EntityState.Modified;
            db.SaveChanges();
            return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");
        }
        return View(data);
    }

and the Model code for the database looks like this:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Data.Entity;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

namespace DFAccountancy.Models
{
    public class Data
    {
        [DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
        public int ID { get; set; }
        public string para1 { get; set; }
        public string para2 { get; set; }
    }

    public class DataDBContext : DbContext
    {
        public DbSet<Data> Data { get; set; }
    }
}

===========================================

the Homepage code

@model IEnumerable<DFAccountancy.Models.Data>

@{


                    
                    
                        
                        c#
                        
                        asp.net-mvc
                        
                        textarea
                        
                        line-breaks
                        
                    
                    
                        
                        
                        
                        
                        
                        Edit
                        
                        
                        
                            
                        
                        
                        Report

I have run into a similar situation with this, needing to be able to add an entire article into a database from MVC3 and text areas. There are many ways you could go about this, but the simplest I've found is to turn off the ValidateInput (do NOT do this if you are opening up this to the public...this could cause cross site scripting and all sorts of nasties, make sure you validate the users).

    [HttpPost]
    [AuthRole(Role = "Administrator")]  //Created Validataion so inaccessible from outside
    [ValidateInput(false)]      
    public ActionResult Update(Data data)       
    {       
        if (ModelState.IsValid)       
        {       
            data.ID = 1; //EF need to know which row to update in the database.       
            db.Entry(data).State = EntityState.Modified;       
            db.SaveChanges();       
            return RedirectToAction("Index", "Home");       
        }       
        return View(data);       
    }

If you put a breakpoint in the data, you should see the newline's character ('\r\n') within VStudio. You can this replace that particular character with whatever you'd like (I'd suggest Environment.Newline if this isn't posting back to HTML).

                data.dataString = dataString.Replace(@"\r\n", Environment.Newline);
                //Or change Newline to "<br />" if posting to HTML

answered 2012-03-23T19:00:56.997

line breaks in textarea used in a MVC C# website app

the Homepage code

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