Itext missing line break on chunk - itext

Question

I'm using Itext to generate a pdf and I need to do something like Chunk.keepOnSameLine.
I'm building a Phrase that can have several lines that are composed by multiple Chunks and when the line ends, I want the chunk not to be broken.
The Chunk is a name and a date. Ex: "John Smith (2016-01-13 11:13)"
The code is like
Phrase p = new Phrase();
Chunk c1 = new Chunk("FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)");
p.Add(c1);
Chunk c2 = new Chunk("FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)")
p.Add(c2);
Chunk c3 = new Chunk("FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)")
p.Add(c3);
Chunk c4 = new Chunk("FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)")
p.Add(c4);
Chunk c5 = new Chunk("FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)")
p.Add(c5);
Chunk c6 = new Chunk("FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)")
p.Add(c6);
Chunk c7 = new Chunk("FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)")
p.Add(c7);
(the code is dynamic so I don't know how many chunks will exist.
On the result phrase is showing like
the resulting phrase is then added to a PdfPCell

Answer 1

You can modify how iText splits lines by implementing ISplitCharacter and replacing the defaults (hyphen and space) with your own:
public class CustomSplitCharacter : ISplitCharacter
{
public bool IsSplitCharacter(
int start, int current, int end, char[] cc, PdfChunk[] ck)
{
char c = ck == null
? cc[current]
: (char)ck[Math.Min(current, ck.Length - 1)]
.GetUnicodeEquivalent(cc[current])
;
return (c == ')');
}
}
Then call SetSplitCharacter() on Chunk:
string chunkText = "FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)";
Random random = new Random();
var font = new Font(Font.FontFamily.HELVETICA, 10, Font.BOLD);
using (Document document = new Document())
{
PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, stream);
document.Open();
Phrase phrase = new Phrase();
for (var i = 0; i < 1000; ++i)
{
var asterisk = new String('*', random.Next(1, 20));
Chunk chunk = new Chunk(
string.Format("[{0}] {1}", asterisk, chunkText),
font
);
chunk.SetSplitCharacter(new CustomSplitCharacter());
phrase.Add(chunk);
}
document.Add(phrase);
}
This assumes your Chunk ends with ) like your example code, or that you have control of the Chunk's last character of text.
No dependency on a specific font. :)

Answer 2

Use Unicode U+00A0 which is a non-breaking space. You'll also want to use U+2011 which is a non-breaking hyphen. However, a non-breaking hyphen is technically a different character than a regular hyphen so you'll need a font that supports it, too.
var testString = "FirstName LastName (2016-01-13 11:13)";
var nbsp = "\u00a0";
var nbhy = "\u2011";
//With a normal space
var p1 = new Phrase();
for (var i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
p1.Add(new Chunk(testString + " "));
}
doc.Add(p1);
//Create a font that supports our "hard hyphen"
var bf = BaseFont.CreateFont(fontFile, BaseFont.IDENTITY_H, BaseFont.EMBEDDED);
var f = new iTextSharp.text.Font(bf, 12);
testString = testString.Replace(" ", nbsp).Replace("-", nbhy);
//With a non-breaking space
var p2 = new Phrase();
for (var i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
p2.Add(new Chunk(testString + " ", f));
}
doc.Add(p2);