WPF linebreak problems

Question

I have a TextBlock and want to show information from the database. I wan't to display the text like this:

Task for Day xy
- blabla
- blabla 
- more blablabla

Somehow I need to include a character for the newlines.. I thoug about \n.. so the text in the database would look like:

Task for Day xy\n- blabla\n- blabla\n- more blablabla

doesn't work.

I tried and searched online for hours.. no solution how to do that. Also this doesn't work:

Task for Day xy<LineBreak />- blabla<LineBreak />- blabla<LineBreak />- more blablabla

the application shows exactly that string from the database without new lines..

here the part of the xaml:

<Grid>
  <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
      <ColumnDefinition Width="100" />
      <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
  </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
  <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding Date, StringFormat={}{0:dd.MM.yyyy}}" Margin="6" />
  <TextBlock Grid.Column="2" Text="{Binding Notes}" Margin="6" />
</Grid>

any ideas?

Possible duplicate - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/183406/xaml-newline-in-string-attribute — Dylan Meador, Aug 18 '11 at 14:58
@Dylan: I disagree: The text from the text block is not a XAML literal, but rather a data-bound string. — Heinzi, Aug 18 '11 at 15:08

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 18 '11 at 15:04

2

I would not recommend storing the line breaks in the database, as line breaks will not be the same across platforms. I would just add the line breaks before displaying using System.Environment.NewLine.

answered Aug 18 '11 at 15:04

Brent Stewart

1,830
14
21

Well, if you're using WPF, platform independence is a bit hard to achieve anyway... – Heinzi Aug 18 '11 at 15:06
2

True, but the data is not guaranteed to be only consumed from WPF. – Brent Stewart Aug 18 '11 at 15:22

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 18 '11 at 15:04

0

Just include a regular newline character in the text, no fancy escape sequences or XML tags:

 string fromDb = ... // get string from DB
 myPropertyWhichIsBoundToWpf = fromDb.Replace("hereShouldBeALinebreak", 
                                              System.Environment.NewLine);

answered Aug 18 '11 at 15:04

Heinzi

167,459
57
363
519

thank you, I thougt about something like this. just hoped there was a better solution – pat Aug 19 '11 at 06:00
@patricci: An alternative would be to create a Converter that adds the newline for you. That way, you can bind the data directly without adding a new property: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.data.ivalueconverter.aspx – Heinzi Aug 19 '11 at 06:05

WPF linebreak problems

2 Answers2