Succinct way to remove whitespace from model property values in MVC view

Question

I'm using MVC and in my View I'm assigning classes to various divs, etc using the values of certain properties within my View Model.

However, these values contain spaces and I need to remove the spaces before rendering the HTML.

Is there another way of doing this?

<% Response.Write(benefit.Name.Replace(" ","")); %>

Answer 1

If you think about it, the code in your view is just editing a string. So a basic Replace as you have done is how I would do it.

However, why not do the work in your model, ie provide properties that return the trimmed string? Or better still, a method? EG:

<%: Model.ReplaceWS(benefit.Name); %>

Where:

public string ReplaceWS(string s)
{
   s = s.Replace(" ", "");
   return s;
}

If nothing else, this looks neater and makes the view easier to read.

You could also create an extension method for string (You could limit visibility by using a given namespace in the extension method definition)

That way you could write:

<%: benefit.Name.ReplaceWS(); %>

I think that is my preferred option, as it expresses what you are doing

Answer 2

Using string's Replace method is fine. Another option would be to use a Regex, but that's more complicated.

However, you shouldn't really be using Response.Write in ASP.NET MVC templates - there is an output delimiter tag '<%:' for that:

<%: benefit.Name.Replace(" ","") %>

Note that you don't need the semi-colon when using the '<%:' tag.

Isn't that more succinct already?

Note: You should use '<%=' in MVC 1, and '<%:' in MVC 2. The latter sanitises strings to prevent XSS attacks.