CODEWITHSUNDEEP
xmlvb.netliteralsxelement
oscilatingcretin
oscilatingcretin

Reputation: 10919

Can I escape XML characters like brackets that are contained within XML literal syntax of VB.NET?

A while back, I asked this question:

Does VB.NET have a multi-line string declaration syntax equivalent to c#?

Here I was introduced to XML literals in VB.NET. Using this syntax, I was able to simulate the multi-line string syntax available in c# using the @ symbol. However, I've come upon a snag. It seems that putting < or > in the text does not sit well in the belly of Visual Studio. Take this code as an example:

Dim Sql As String = <a><![CDATA[]]>
                        <text instead pointy brackets fails>
                    </a>.Value

Can I somehow escape these brackets or tell the literal not to care about it?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1909

Answers (2)

AlGonzalez
AlGonzalez

Reputation: 181

You need to put the text within the CDATA section:

Dim Sql As String = <a><![CDATA[
<text instead pointy brackets fails>
]]></a>.Value

Console.WriteLine("===")
Console.WriteLine(Sql)
Console.WriteLine("===")

should output:

===

<text instead pointy brackets fails>

===

Note that CDATA will also preserve leading spaces in your text; that is why I removed them from the bracketed text.

Upvotes: 2

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1500675

XML literals are only for XML data. You could use &lt; to escape the left angle brackets, but really unless you genuinely want XML data I would suggest you don't use XML literals at all.

Upvotes: 4

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