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Encoding/Decoding URIs and HTML in the .NET 4 Client Profile

Pete Brown - 07 April 2010

In the .NET 3.5 timeframe and earlier, many client developers referenced System.Web.dll in order to be able to use System.Web.HttpUtility and its helpful encode/decode and parse methods. While those functions were really useful, the full framework is a pretty hefty tax to pay for just a couple methods.

I ran across this tax today when I tried to use a popular twitter library (written in .NET 3.5) with a .NET 4 client profile project. That project references the full System.Web.dll and won't compile under a client profile project in .NET 4.

You no longer need to rely on ASP.NET DLLs on the client just to encode/decode HTML.

The .NET 4 client profile includes a new class that provides some of the functionality of System.Web.HttpUtility, without requiring all the baggage of ASP.NET on the client. Yes, you can finally decode and encode HTML strings/streams without having to use HttpUtility.

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Here's the list of methods from MSDN.

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MSDN Information on the WebUtility class

By default, when you create a new WPF project, it uses the client profile. When building client applications, you should always attempt to stay within the client profile, unless you know all your users will have the full .NET framework. The client profile itself for .NET 4 is pretty tight, and a quick download. A user will the full .NET framework will be able to run your application just fine. If the user doesn't have the right version of the .NET framework installed, their download and install will be much quicker.

string html = "<p class='foo'>I am the walrus. You & I, me and you.&nbsp;End-of-line</p>";

string encoded = WebUtility.HtmlEncode(html);
string decoded = WebUtility.HtmlDecode(encoded);

Debug.WriteLine("Original: " + html);
Debug.WriteLine("Encoded: " + encoded);
Debug.WriteLine("Decoded: " + decoded);

// Output:
//Original: <p class='foo'>I am the walrus. You & I, me and you.&nbsp;End-of-line</p>
//Encoded: &lt;p class=&#39;foo&#39;&gt;I am the walrus. You &amp; I, me and you.&amp;nbsp;End-of-line&lt;/p&gt;
//Decoded: <p class='foo'>I am the walrus. You & I, me and you.&nbsp;End-of-line</p>

Encoding and Decoding URIs / URLs

Encoding and Decoding URIs can be done through the static methods on the URI class. These functions aren't new to .NET 4, but many folks aren't aware they're there.

Function Description
EscapeDataString Escapes a string of data
EscapeString Don't use this anymore. Obsolete
EscapeUriString Escapes a string using URL Encoding
Unescape Don't use this anymore. Obsolete
UnescapeDataString Converts a string by replacing all the encoded values with their equivalents. This works on the output of both EscapeDataString and EscapeUriString.
HexEscape Returns the Hex value for a character
HexUnescape Returns the character for a hex value

 

string url = "http://foo.com/search.html?code=xyzzy&id=3263827&s=I have spaces don't I";

string encoded = Uri.EscapeUriString(url);
string decoded = Uri.UnescapeDataString(encoded);

Debug.WriteLine("Original: " + url);
Debug.WriteLine("Encoded: " + encoded);
Debug.WriteLine("Decoded: " + decoded);

// Output:
//Original: http://foo.com/search.html?code=xyzzy&id=3263827&s=I have spaces don't I
//Encoded: http://foo.com/search.html?code=xyzzy&id=3263827&s=I%20have%20spaces%20don't%20I
//Decoded: http://foo.com/search.html?code=xyzzy&id=3263827&s=I have spaces don't I

You can use the same type of code to escape name/value pairs for data in a form submission.

Parsing Query Strings

That leaves us to ParseQueryString, the only other commonly-used HttpUtility method that caused folks to pull in the full framework when the client profile would have otherwise worked.

Fortunately, this isn't a hard problem to solve. You can brute force it with some splits, or you can go the regex route like some folks did here.

 

Those three things together: HTML Encoding/Decoding, URL Encoding/Decoding, and Query String Parsing should be enough to reduce or eliminate your dependence on the full .NET framework.

       
posted by Pete Brown on Wednesday, April 7, 2010
filed under:        

12 comments for “Encoding/Decoding URIs and HTML in the .NET 4 Client Profile”

  1. Pravesh Singhsays:
    Hi,

    I was reading your article and I would like to appreciate you for making it very simple and understandable. This article gives me a basic idea of Encoding and Decoding in ASP.Net and it will help me a lot. I had found another nice post with wonderful explanation on Encoding and Decoding in ASP.Net, for more details check out this link....
    http://mindstick.com/Articles/b3d1fb4c-f386-49af-a464-fc96467eb957/?Encoding%20and%20Decoding%20in%20ASP.Net

    Thank you very much!

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