Asp.Net MVC - ValidationMessage() - how to prevent HTML escaping?

Question

In my scenario I'd like to display a text with URL link within validation message attached to form element on MVC view. I'm using ValidationExtensions.ValidationMessage extension method, like this:

<%=Html.ValidationMessage(Model.Name) %>

The behavior I'm seeing is that validation message is HTML escaped, what effectively prevents me from adding a link to message. Is there a way to circumvent this behavior? My error messages aren't user-supplied, so I don't think I have to worry about output sanitization here...

Answer 1

I'm guessing that since Html.ValidationMessage is built in you're going to either create your own version, or if you're feeling creative, since it returns a string, assign that and then unescape the characters you want to change back.

string validation = Html.ValidationMessage(Model.Name);
validation = Regex.Replace(validation, "&gt;", "<");
//etc...

Answer 2

You could use the HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(...) method along with your Html.ValidationMessage(...) method to get 'err done :D