Access the Repeater.Item.Count value within a codebehind method

Question

I have a repeater on my page:

<asp:Repeater id="attachmentsRepeater" runat="server">
    <HeaderTemplate>
        <% 
        if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 0) {
            if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count == 1) {
                Response.Write("<h3>Attachment</h3>");
                Response.Write("<p>");
            } else {
                Response.Write("<h3>Attachments</h3>");
                Response.Write("<ul>");
            }
        }
        %>
    </HeaderTemplate>
    <ItemTemplate>
        <%# OutputAttachment(Container)%>
    </ItemTemplate>  
    <FooterTemplate>
        <% 
        if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 0) {
            if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count == 1) {
                Response.Write("</p>");
            } else {
                Response.Write("</ul>");
            }
        }
        %>
    </FooterTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

The original ItemTemplate code looked like this:

<ItemTemplate>
    <%
    if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 0) {
        if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 1) {
            Response.Write("<li>");
        }
        %>
        <a href="<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "location") %>">
            <%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "name") %>
        </a>
        <%
        if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 1) {
            Response.Write("<li>");
        }
    }
    %>
</ItemTemplate>  

In the codebehind, I would like to access the number of Items in the Repeater (line 4):

public string OutputAttachment(RepeaterItem Container) {
    string returnValue = "";
    Repeater ContainerParent = (Repeater)Container.Parent;
    if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 0) {
        if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 1) {
            returnValue += "<li>";
        }
        returnValue += "<a href=\"" + DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "location");
        if (DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "location").ToString().EndsWith("/")) {
            returnValue += DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "name");
        }
        returnValue += ">" + DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "name") + "</a>";
        if (attachmentsRepeater.Items.Count > 1) {
            returnValue += "</li>";
        }
    }
    return returnValue;
}

The code that is output is

<h3>Attachment</h3>
<p> </p>

From this output I know that Item.Count == 1 since there is output, the H3 is singular and there is a P tag. If Item.Count > 1, H3 would be plural and there would be a UL tag.

Is this codebehind method being run before the data is bound? Any workarounds for this? Thanks for your help.

This was working for me before, but I had to change it to fulfill a new requirement, which is when it stopped working.

Answer 1

The best place to do your data binding is in the code behind in the page_load event or some other event that is fired when the page is first created.

That way you can control when the data is bound - and you can call the OuputAttachment method after you have bound your data - and you can be sure that the data actually exists.