Generate an algorithm in C# to take hierarchy data to generate this html

Question

I have this html as a reference and I have a set of hierarchy data. The names of the nodes are hopefully helpful to understand where they fit in the chain

here is the reference html (hardcoded)

 <ul id="tree1">
      <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1</label>
       <ul>
        <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.1</label>
              <ul>
                     <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.1.1</label>
              </ul>
      </ul>
         <ul>
           <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2</label>
              <ul>
                 <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2.1</label>
                 <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2.2</label>
                 <ul>
                         <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2.3.1</label>             <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2.3.2</label>
                </ul>
                    <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2.4</label>
                    <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2.5</label>
                    <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 1.2.6</label>
                </ul>
        </ul>
    <li><input type="checkbox"><label>Node 2</label>

i now need C# code to take this hierarchy of data to generate this html output above. I have a Node object that has a .Children() property. here is what i have so far but i am missing some </ul> somewhere in this code.

NOTE: that _b is a string builder object that is being used at the end to output a string.

   static public void GenerateTree(Node node, bool skipUL)
    {
        if (node.Children.Count() > 0)
        {
            bool included = false;
            foreach (Node childNode in node.Children)
            {
                if (!included && !skipUL)
                {
                    _b.AppendLine("<ul>");
                    included = true;
                }
                skipUL = false;
                _b.AppendLine("<li><input type='checkbox'>" + childNode .Name);
                GenerateTree(childNode, skipUL);
            }
            if (included)
            {
                _b.AppendLine("</ul>");
            }
        }
    }

Answer 1

I would take a tad different approach, namely beginning with the collection not the single entity (since chances are your root is going to be a collection, unless this is always going to only have one root element).

That being said:

    public static String Dump(List<Node> nodes)
    {
            if (nodes == null || nodes.Count == 0)
                    return String.Empty;

            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("<ul>");
            foreach (var n in nodes)
            {
                    sb.AppendFormat("<li>{0}", n.Name);
                    sb.Append(Dump(n.Children));
                    sb.Append("</li>");
            }
            sb.Append("</ul>");

            return sb.ToString();
    }

And here's a demo, with a simple mock-up of what I expect your objects to look like:

DEMO

Answer 2

From what I see you should be fine without the included and skipUL tags. The algorithm is straightforward:

• For each node:
  • output <li>
  • output node name
  • if it has children
    • output <ul>
    • recursively output children
    • output </ul>
  • output </li>

There is no need for any special handling. No extra variables are needed.