Is there anyway to inbuilt C# function to generate a valid CSS class name?

Question

Is there an inbuilt ASP.Net or MVC3 function that generates a valid CSS class given a string. Tagbuilder seems to have one AddCssClass. However just wondering if there is anything else that takes a string and converts it to valid CSS Class name by converting invalid characters to valid ones?

As an example say I have a string "Test. Bad Class Name"

I was wondering if there was a helper function to convert this to "Test__Bad Class_Name" or some such thing.

MVC doesn't seem to generate bad IDs etc so I just wondered if it had something that did this so I was being consistent. I just thought it would be a common requirement.

What makes you think that TagBuilder.AddCssClass generates a valid CSS name? You could throw just any crap at it and it will accept it :-) It's your responsibility not to throw crap at it. AFAIK there's no built-in method for this. — Darin Dimitrov
– Darin Dimitrov, Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 23:13
You want a helper function to generate a CSS class (e.g. .test { color: Red }), or you just want a way to assign a class name (e.g. test) to a DOM element in your code (code-behind or view)? I'm not sure I totally understand what you want. — David Hoerster
– David Hoerster, Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 23:14
@Darin Dimitrov maybe I was thinking of the ID generation. I think it swaps out dots so I thought class names were converted to be valid. Guess not! :) — GraemeMiller
– GraemeMiller, Commented Jan 25, 2012 at 23:20

Anders Tornblad · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-25 23:28:00Z

3

string className = Regex.Replace(myInput, @"[^a-zA-Z_\-]+", "_");

I know this pattern is overly zealous and replaces characters it shouldn't, like numbers, but it will give you a one-way function for generating valid css class names.

answered Jan 25, 2012 at 23:28

Anders Tornblad

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3 Comments

GraemeMiller Over a year ago

Thanks. I guess I was overly optimistic thinking it was inbuilt.

Anders Tornblad Over a year ago

Just keep in mind that you cannot guarantee, with this method, that two different inputs always generate different outcome. Like "some class" and "some,class" both give "some_class"

GraemeMiller Over a year ago

Yeah I appreciate that. Be more than good enough for my requirement. Just didn't want to go adding code if I was missing an obvious in built function.

Andiih · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-11 15:25:04Z

1

Here's @atornblad solution as an extension method

    public static string ToValidClassName(this string srcString)
    {
        return Regex.Replace(srcString, @"[^a-zA-Z_\-]+", "_");
    }

Makes it 'feel' built in :-)

answered Apr 11, 2013 at 15:25

Andiih

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Bojan Hrnkas · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-04 14:51:05Z

0

There is also XmlConvert.EncodeLocalName, which is not pretty, but it is reversible. Xml name and css class have similar naming constrains.

answered Mar 4, 2013 at 14:51

Bojan Hrnkas

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