Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication... --Niklaus Wirth

C# StyleHelper Class

A C# class to convert between a Style object, style string or CssStyleCollection

Summary

As far as I can tell, .NET (as of version 1.1) does not provide an easy way to convert a Style object into a style string or CssStyleCollection. There are situations, especially when applying styles to HtmlControls, where this functionality is needed.

I have written a simple method to do the conversion. It uses the brute force approach, but it works. If there is a more elegant (tested) solution, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Implement the following method in the code behind file of an ASP.NET page with a Label (lblOutput) and an HTML Table control (htmlTable) with the runat=server attribute:

Example: How to use the StyleHelper Class
private void TestStyleHelper()
{
   // create the style object
   Style style1 = new Style();
   style1.BackColor = Color.Tan;
   style1.ForeColor = Color.DarkBlue;
   style1.BorderWidth = new Unit(2.0, UnitType.Pixel);
   style1.BorderColor = Color.SkyBlue;
   style1.Font.Bold = true;
   style1.Font.Name = "Verdana";
   
   // instantiate the style helper
   StyleHelper helper = new StyleHelper();

   // generate the style string
   lblOutput.Text = helper.StyleToString(style1);

   // apply to CssStyleCollection
   helper.StyleToCollection(style1, htmlTable.Style);

}

If you run the previous method you'll get something similar to the following output:

Example: Output
<!-- The string form of the Style object -->

background-color:#D2B48C;color:#00008B;border:#87CEEB 2px solid;
font-weight:Bold;font-family:Verdana, Verdana;

<!-- htmlTable appearance: Not shown here. -->

Here's the class:

The C# StyleHelper Class:
namespace Cambia.Web.CoreLib
{

   using System;
   using System.Collections;
   using System.Drawing;
   using System.Web.UI;
   using System.Text;
   using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

   /// <summary>
   /// StyleHelper.  Assists in converting a Style object to a text string 
   /// or a CssStyleCollection.
   /// </summary>
   public class StyleHelper
   {
      static char[] hexDigits = 
         {'0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', 
            '8', '9', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F'};

      public StyleHelper()
      {
      }
	
      #region -- Methods --
      public string StyleToString(Style s) 
      {
         StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

         if (s.BackColor != Color.Empty)
            sb.Append("background-color:" 
               + ColorToHexString(s.BackColor) + ";");
         if (s.ForeColor != Color.Empty)
            sb.Append("color:" 
               + ColorToHexString(s.ForeColor) + ";");

         #region -- Border --
         string color = "black";
         string width = "";
         string style = "solid";
         if (s.BorderColor != Color.Empty)
            color = ColorToHexString(s.BorderColor);
         if (s.BorderStyle != BorderStyle.NotSet)
            style = s.BorderStyle.ToString();
         if (s.BorderWidth != Unit.Empty)
            width = s.BorderWidth.ToString();
         if (color != "" && width != "" && style != "")
            sb.Append("border:" + color + " " + width + " " + style + ";");
         #endregion

         #region -- Font --

         #region -- Font General --
         if (s.Font.Size != FontUnit.Empty)
            sb.Append("font-size:" + s.Font.Size.ToString()+ ";");
         if (s.Font.Bold == true)
            sb.Append("font-weight:Bold;");
         if (s.Font.Italic == true)
            sb.Append("font-style:Italic;");
         #endregion

         #region -- Font Names --
         ArrayList fontList = new ArrayList();
         if (s.Font.Name.Length != 0)
            fontList.Add(s.Font.Name);
         foreach (string f in s.Font.Names)
            fontList.Add(f);
         if (fontList.Count > 0)
         {
            string fontString = "";
            for (int i=0; i<fontList.Count; i++)
            {
            if (i==0)
               fontString = (string)fontList[i];
            else
               fontString += ", " + fontList[i];
            }
            sb.Append("font-family:" + fontString + ";");
         }
         #endregion

         #region - Text Decoration --
         ArrayList decorList = new ArrayList();
         if (s.Font.Underline == true)
            decorList.Add("underline");
         if (s.Font.Overline == true)
            decorList.Add("overline");
         if (s.Font.Strikeout == true)
            decorList.Add("line-through");
         if (decorList.Count > 0)
         {
            string strDecor = "";
            for (int i=0; i<decorList.Count; i++)
            {
               if (i==0)
                  strDecor = (string)decorList[i];
               else
                  strDecor += ", " + decorList[i];
            }
            sb.Append("text-decoration:" + strDecor + ";");
         }
         #endregion

         #endregion

         #region -- Height and Width --
         if (!s.Height.IsEmpty)
            sb.Append("height:" + s.Height.ToString()+ ";");
         if (!s.Width.IsEmpty)
            sb.Append("width:" + s.Width.ToString()+ ";");
         #endregion

         return sb.ToString(); 

      }
      public void StyleToCollection(Style source, 
         CssStyleCollection destination) 
      { 
         string strStyle = StyleToString(source);
         string[] styles = strStyle.Split(new char[] {';'});
         CssStyleCollection c = destination;
         char[] colonSplit = new char[] {':'};
         foreach (string style in styles)
         {
            string[] elements = style.Split(colonSplit);
            if (elements.Length == 2)
               c.Add(elements[0], elements[1]);
         }

      }

      public string ColorToHexString(Color color) 
      {
         byte[] bytes = new byte[3];
         bytes[0] = color.R;
         bytes[1] = color.G;
         bytes[2] = color.B;
         char[] chars = new char[bytes.Length * 2];
         for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++) 
         {
            int b = bytes[i];
            chars[i * 2] = hexDigits[b >> 4];
            chars[i * 2 + 1] = hexDigits[b & 0xF];
         }
         return "#" + new string(chars);
      }
      #endregion

   }
}
 

Version: 6.0.20200920.1535