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Language: ASP.NET
Expertise: Advanced

May 18, 2009

When an ASP.NET resource file includes newline characters (\n) as part of a string value, the embedded newlines don't show up correctly on the client side. The solution is to use the special defined character Environment.NewLine in your server-side code. The example below is in VB, but the same approach works in C#:

Dim resReader As ResourceReader = Nothing
Dim dicEnumerator As IDictionaryEnumerator = Nothing
Dim keyValuePair As StringBuilder

resReader = New ResourceReader(path)
dicEnumerator = resReader.GetEnumerator()

While dicEnumerator.MoveNext()
' Environment.NewLine is the new line char most appropriate for the 'environment
keyValuePair.Append(dicEnumerator.Key + "=" + _
   dicEnumerator.Value.ToString().Replace("\n", Environment.NewLine))
End While

The preceding code replaces any \n characters embedded in the resource string with the Environment.NewLine character.