Storing and Displaying Formatted Strings

anubhav.kumar · October 20th, 2004, 07:33 AM

Greetings to all.

I have to display chemical equations and algebric equations on html page.
These equations are the part of the questions in an online examination.
i don't want to use images for performance considerations.
The questions are being composed offline and uploaded to online database. (MS Access for now. May be SQL Server in future)

My Problem is:

How can i store formatted strings in database involving special characters and superscript and subscript?

How can we retrieve the string from database along with formatting to display them correctly?

Anubhav Kumar

happygv · October 20th, 2004, 10:34 AM

Hi Anubhav Kumar,

There are tags for Superscript and SubScript. Here you go.

Code:

Do you want to see what is <sub>SubScript</sub> and how does a <sup>SuperScript</sup> look?

Check this link for Special Characters

When you store data on to db, you can store the formatted string, so that just read from db and display would give you the formatted effect.

Hope that helps.
Cheers!

_________________________
- Vijay G
Strive for Perfection

bmains · October 20th, 2004, 12:32 PM

You want to use a string like in the previous post, and then Server.HtmlEncode() when you store it in the database. Then do Server.HtmlDecode() when showing to the screen.

Brian

happygv · October 20th, 2004, 01:10 PM

Actually there is no HTMLDECODE as such. So you got to write a function something like this, that does the decode for you, when displaying the content.

Code:

Private Function HTMLDecode(byVal encodedstring)
    Dim tmp, i
    tmp = encodedstring
    tmp = Replace( tmp, "&quot;", chr(34) )
    tmp = Replace( tmp, "&lt;"  , chr(60) )
    tmp = Replace( tmp, "&gt;"  , chr(62) )
    tmp = Replace( tmp, "&amp;" , chr(38) )
    tmp = Replace( tmp, "&nbsp;", chr(32) )
    For i = 1 to 255
        tmp = Replace( tmp, "(*)#" & i & ";", chr( i ) )
        There is some issue with the & used along with # here.
        So I have used (*) in the previous line. Replace that with &
        Will post a feedback on this issue.
    Next
    HTMLDecode = tmp
End Function

Hope that helps.
Cheers!

_________________________
- Vijay G
Strive for Perfection

bmains · October 21st, 2004, 07:01 AM

Sure there is an HTMLDecode, see MSDN: [link]http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemwebhttpserverutilityclasshtmldecodetopi c.asp[/link].

Brian

happygv · October 21st, 2004, 11:35 AM

Brian,

Looks like that page doesn't exist. Takes me to 404 error - Location Cannot Be Found
Can you point me to the right page if any?

Is that true? I never knew that. Then why does that show me an error when I try to use?
Error Type:
Microsoft VBScript runtime (0x800A01B6)
Object doesn't support this property or method: 'Server.HTMLDecode'

And google too never throws me an MS site link related to that. Wondering!

May be .Net's SERVER object supports HTMLDECODE, not the ASP SERVER object.

Cheers!

_________________________
- Vijay G
Strive for Perfection

bmains · October 21st, 2004, 12:06 PM

When I originally submitted the post, I didn't even realize that this was ASP 3. My apologies.

Brian

anubhav.kumar · October 25th, 2004, 04:59 AM

Thanks for consideration to all.

Dear Vigay G.

Its true that the solution given by you and Brians will definetly work. I already know that. I just want a suggestion, is there any tool through which we can compose html formatted pages and store them in databases?

Anubhav Kumar

happygv · October 25th, 2004, 06:57 AM

Anubav,

May be you can develop one such, considering all the points to format that and store into database which can be reusable. I haven't come across such tool as such.

Cheers!

_________________________
- Vijay G
Strive for Perfection

anubhav.kumar · October 25th, 2004, 09:42 AM

Dear Vijay G.

I am planning to develop a tool in VB for that. The real stuck for me is to implement editing commands for superscript, subscript and special characters in Rich Text Box

I know this is asp forum but the problem is realated . Please don't mind

Anubhav Kumar