MVC3 - passing NEW-LINE to ModelState.AddModelError

Question

When an error occurs on the back-end, the MVC controller returns a message via the
ModelState.AddModelError(\"\", \"message\");

I would like to ha

Answer 1

Controller:

ModelState.AddModelError("MyError", "Line 1" + Environment.NewLine + "Line 2");

Razor:

<span style="white-space: pre-line">@Html.ValidationSummary()</span>

Answer 2

This is a late answer, however this is the top result when I Google, so my solution may help someone.

I went around the problem and added a separate line for each error message line. Displays beautifully.

Controller code:

    public ActionResult Edit(EditModel model)
    {
            try
            {
                //... do update
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                if (ex.Message.Contains(Environment.NewLine))
                {
                    var messages = ex.Message.Split(new[] { Environment.NewLine }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
                    foreach (var message in messages)
                    {
                        this.ModelState.AddModelError(string.Empty, message);
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    this.ModelState.AddModelError(string.Empty, ex.Message);
                }
            }
        //...

        return this.View(model);
    }

Answer 3

The ValidationSummary helper HTML encodes error messages and this is by design. It means that you cannot use HTML tags as they will be encoded. So you could write a custom helper which doesn't encode:

public static class ValidationExtensions
{
    public static IHtmlString MyValidationSummary(this HtmlHelper htmlHelper)
    {
        var formContextForClientValidation = htmlHelper.ViewContext.ClientValidationEnabled ? htmlHelper.ViewContext.FormContext : null;
        if (htmlHelper.ViewData.ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            if (formContextForClientValidation == null)
            {
                return null;
            }
            if (htmlHelper.ViewContext.UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled)
            {
                return null;
            }
        }

        var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
        var ulBuilder = new TagBuilder("ul");

        ModelState modelState;
        if (htmlHelper.ViewData.ModelState.TryGetValue(htmlHelper.ViewData.TemplateInfo.HtmlFieldPrefix, out modelState))
        {
            foreach (ModelError error in modelState.Errors)
            {
                string userErrorMessageOrDefault = error.ErrorMessage;
                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(userErrorMessageOrDefault))
                {
                    var liBuilder = new TagBuilder("li");
                    liBuilder.InnerHtml = userErrorMessageOrDefault;
                    stringBuilder.AppendLine(liBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal));
                }
            }
        }

        if (stringBuilder.Length == 0)
        {
            stringBuilder.AppendLine("<li style=\"display:none\"></li>");
        }
        ulBuilder.InnerHtml = stringBuilder.ToString();

        TagBuilder divBuilder = new TagBuilder("div");
        divBuilder.AddCssClass(htmlHelper.ViewData.ModelState.IsValid ? HtmlHelper.ValidationSummaryValidCssClassName : HtmlHelper.ValidationSummaryCssClassName);
        divBuilder.InnerHtml = ulBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal);
        if (formContextForClientValidation != null)
        {
            if (!htmlHelper.ViewContext.UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled)
            {
                divBuilder.GenerateId("validationSummary");
                formContextForClientValidation.ValidationSummaryId = divBuilder.Attributes["id"];
                formContextForClientValidation.ReplaceValidationSummary = false;
            }
        }
        return new HtmlString(divBuilder.ToString(TagRenderMode.Normal));
    }
}

and then:

@Html.MyValidationSummary()

It is the following line in our custom helper which explicitly doesn't HTML encode:

liBuilder.InnerHtml = userErrorMessageOrDefault;

In the original helper it looks like this:

liBuilder.SetInnerText(userErrorMessageOrDefault);

Answer 4

Try wrapping the validation summary in an Html.Raw and a Server.HtmlDecode, like so:

@Html.Raw(Server.HtmlDecode(Html.ValidationSummary().ToString()))