Can't find control within asp.net repeater?

Question

I have the following repeater below and I am trying to find lblA in code behind and it fails. Below the markup are the attempts I have made:

<asp:Repeater ID="rptDetails" runat="server">     <HeaderTemplate>         <table>     </HeaderTemplate>     <ItemTemplate>         <tr>             <td><strong>A:</strong></td>             <td><asp:Label ID="lblA" runat="server"></asp:Label>             </td>         </tr>     </ItemTemplate> </asp:Repeater> </table> 

First I tried,

Label lblA = (Label)rptDetails.FindControl("lblA"); 

but lblA was null

Then I tried,

Label lblA = (Label)rptDetails.Items[0].FindControl("lblA"); 

but Items was 0 even though m repeater contains 1 itemtemplate

Answer 1

You need to set the attribute OnItemDataBound="myFunction"

And then in your code do the following

void myFunction(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e) {    Label lblA = (Label)e.Item.FindControl("lblA"); } 

Incidentally you can use this exact same approach for nested repeaters. IE:

<asp:Repeater ID="outerRepeater" runat="server" OnItemDataBound="outerFunction"> <ItemTemplate>    <asp:Repeater ID="innerRepeater" runat="server" OnItemDataBound="innerFunction">    <ItemTemplate><asp:Label ID="myLabel" runat="server" /></ItemTemplate>    </asp:Repeater> </ItemTemplate> </asp:Repeater> 

And then in your code:

void outerFunction(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e) {    Repeater innerRepeater = (Repeater)e.Item.FindControl("innerRepeater");    innerRepeater.DataSource = ... // Some data source    innerRepeater.DataBind(); } void innerFunction(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e) {    Label myLabel = (Label)e.Item.FindControl("myLabel"); } 

All too often I see people manually binding items on an inner repeater and they don't realize how difficult they're making things for themselves.