Aliasing rows with hyperlinks when sending HTML table via sp_send_dbmail - html

Question

I am emailing an HTML table to users but I want to alias the hyperlinks for space reasons. Please have a look on the image.
Here is the Sample1 of the image:
Please see my below code :
DECLARE #bodyMsg nvarchar(max)
DECLARE #subject nvarchar(max)
DECLARE #tableHTML nvarchar(max)
SET #subject = 'Query Results in HTML with CSS'
DECLARE #email_to_notify nvarchar(256);
SELECT #email_to_notify = 'bens#ioec.co.za' ;
SET #tableHTML =
N'<style type="text/css">
...
</tr>' +
CAST ( (
SELECT
td = y.Customer,'',
td = y.ContractNumber,'',
td = y.Description ,'',
td = y.Market ,'',
td = y.BDM ,'',
td = y.EC ,'',
td = y.Reason ,'',
td = y.Link
FROM (SELECT FileReference AS 'Reference', Name AS 'Customer' ,
CASE WHEN ContractNumber IS NULL THEN '' ELSE ContractNumber END AS 'ContractNumber',
'http://gateway.ioec.co.za/#/trade/files/' + CONVERT(varchar(10),Gw_File.FileID) AS 'Link'
FROM Gw_File INNER JOIN ... ) y
FOR XML PATH('tr'), TYPE
) AS NVARCHAR(MAX) ) +
N'</table>'
EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail #recipients='rajivs#ioec.co.za',
#subject = #subject,
#body = #tableHTML,
#body_format = 'HTML' ;
I would also like to highlight rows depending on value of the reason column.

Answer 1

It seems like that when you're passing your markup, you aren't retaining it's type. Special characters, such as < will be replaced with a string representation to keep the xml valid. For example < & < and & & &.
If it's just the > and < symbols you can use a replace before sending out the email:
SET #tableHTML = REPLACE(REPLACE(#tableHTML,'>','<'),'<','>');
This however, trusts you have no nested HTML.