How to set class on div that is inside of repeater in code behind?

Question

CSS & html

id0 is the class for the div that's got background as a sprite image and inside of this div..there's a list of links (in repeater)..when the user hovers over links..the background image of div displays diff parts of sprite image accordingly

Now I want that the classes id1 to id5 be set as the classes of the repeater's list...now how do I go abut it?

like the list of links inside of repeater is coming from the DB..how do I create div tags inside of this repeater

and how do I set the class for each of the 5 divs that will be created and set these classes on them ?

like earlier I had simple markup but now I have to generate that list of links using a repeater..so how do I apply the CSS now ??

Please give some ideas..thnx

[EDIT] ok tried this.. added div tag in repeater after label and in code behind :- rpt1.FindControl("myDiv").Controls.Add(class= ??) //what to type here use for loop or what ? [edit] this doesnt work..whats wrong ?**

for(int i=1;i<6;i++)
                {
            rpt1.FindControl("myDiv").Controls.Add("class=id[i]");

            }

The above's giving the following error:-

The best overloaded method match for 'System.Web.UI.ControlCollection.Add(System.Web.UI.Control)' has some invalid arguments

Now how do I set classes for the divs?

pch..made dilly mistake..made changes ..

 for (int i = 1; i < 6; i++)
                    {
                        string divClass = "id";
                        rpt1.FindControl("myDiv").Controls.Add("class=id" + i);

                    }

still the same error..

[edit]

tried the following..doesnt work

rpt1.FindControl("myDiv").Attributes.Add("class","id" +i);

[edit]

I tried the following now..

rpt1.FindControl("myDiv").Attributes["class"] = "id" + i;

it says "Cannot apply indexing with [] to an expression of type 'method group'" ???

Answer 1

The ItemDataBinding way

In order to get hold of an element inside the repeater's ItemTemplate you have to declare it runat="Server" and set an id for it (id isn't really neccessary, but simplifies things). If you do that with your div you can get it inside your ItemDataBound event and set the class.

void Repeater_ItemDataBound(Object Sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e) {
  if (e.Item.ItemType == ListItemType.Item
    || e.Item.ItemType == ListItemType.AlternatingItem)   
  {
    ((HtmlGenericControl)(e.Item.FindControl("myDiv"))).
       Attributes["class"] = "id" + index++;
  }
}

You need to declare the index variable and increment it as you set each class.

---

Alternative way

An even simpler and cleaner way IMHO is to set the class directly in the View using data binding

<asp:Repeater ID="rpt" runat="server">
  <ItemTemplate><div class="<%# GetDivClass() %>">a div</div></ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

and in the code behind declare the method for getting the data

private int index = 1;

protected string GetDivClass()
{
  return "div" + index++;
}

Answer 2

If you create the div as an HTML control, then set the class this way:

HtmlControl div = new HtmlGenericControl("div");
div.Attributes.Add("class", "myClassName");

Otherwise if you have created it as a server control (by including the runat="server" attribute) then you can search for it within you control heirarchy and add the attribute.