multiline textbox to string

I have a multiline textbox that I wish to conve开发者_JS百科rt to a string, I found this

string textBoxValue = textBox1.Text.Replace(Environment.NewLine,"TOKEN");

But dont understand TOKEN what is TOKEN? whitespace or /n newline ? If this is the incorrect answer then Please let me know of the correct way of doing this

Thanks

In the code snippet you gave, "TOKEN" is any value you wish to insert, such as an HTML <br /> tag, more Environment.NewLines for formatting, or just some random delimiter that will later allow you to split the text on it.

A very simple example:

string text = textBox1.Text.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "^"); // a random token
string[] lines = test.Split( '^' );

If you are handling input from a textbox available on the web, you also need to take into account XSS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_scripting). Also, in a real scenario I would split on a more complex token and make sure to handle multiple carriage returns in the input value.

EDIT: now that I see your actual requirements, this code may do what you need:

// replace newlines with a single whitespace
string text = textBox1.Text.Replace(Environment.NewLine, " "); 

EDIT #2:

further I need to enter this data into SQLite and rewrite his whole application, The company does not wish to have information from the previos application inputted to the new database, there are hyperlinks etc inbedded in the content , so if there is a way I can make the text box only accept RAW data this would be the best.

Regular Expressions are the way to go for something like this, unless the data is structured enough to load into an XML or HTML DOM and process. You can build regular expressions in a variety of tools (do a Google search for a free online tester and you will find many). Once you have determined the expressions you need, you can use the Regex object in C# to match, replace, etc.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms228595(VS.80).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.regularexpressions.regex.replace(v=VS.100).aspx

As it stands, "TOKEN" is just a meangingless string, unless it is elsewhere in your code? You can replace "TOKEN" with any text you like.

Edit:

Okay, so you say you're removing NewLine's from your client's text. So you would do it like this. Paste their text into a textBox called textBox2, then use the following:

textBox2.Text = textBox2.Text.Replace(Environment.NewLine, string.Empty);