<% %> in ASP.NET (embedded code blocks)

Question

I understand what these signify in the markup of the aspx pages ... but I don't not know the full power they can be used for or even the name to denote these special directives.

Example:

can i put conditional statements like ifs or switches

I have seen and used them to bind data from a data set for example

Any input is greatly appreciated

Answer 1

Here (or here - in case it moves again) is a post I found and stashed away some time ago listing all the different inline server-side tags with examples. There are seven:

1. <%...%> runs normal code
2. <%=...%> is equivalent to Response.Write()
3. <%#...%> is used for databinding expressions
4. <%$...%> returns the value of an expression, and can be used in parameters (note: expressions are not code - see here)
5. <%@...%> is for page directives, usually at the top of the ASPX file
6. <%--...--%> is for comments
7. <%:...%> is the same as <%= except it HTML-encodes the value

Answer 2

These are code Block tags.

And yes you can wrap serverside code in these tags (examples in C#)

<% if (x = y) {   } else {   } %> 

OR

<% if (x = y) {%>    Write this HTML <%  } else {%>    Write this html <%  }%> 

There is also

This <%=SomeVar %> Which will out put SomeVar to HTML