Set ID of Items In a Repeater

Question

In my aspx, I have a repeater which contains three textboxes:

<asp:Repeater ID="myRepeater" runat="server">
    <ItemTemplate>
        <asp:TextBox ID="myTextBox" runat="server"
    <ItemTemplate/>
</asp:Repeater>

In my codebehind, I have my repeater databound to an array int data = new int[3];

So my page displays three textboxes, each with the ID of myTextBox three times. Is there a way to set those IDs to be:

• MyTextBox1
• MyTextBox2
• MyTextBox3

Answer 1

So my page displays three textboxes, each with the ID of myTextBox three times.

Are you sure about that? It sounds like you are talking about the rendered output. View the source and you will find:

<input name="myRepeater$ctl00$myTextBox" type="text" id="myRepeater_myTextBox_0" />
<input name="myRepeater$ctl01$myTextBox" type="text" id="myRepeater_myTextBox_1" />
<input name="myRepeater$ctl02$myTextBox" type="text" id="myRepeater_myTextBox_2" />

From the code behind, you can access this generated id via the ClientID property. You can also access individual controls by searching through your repeater's Items property:

TextBox textBox2 = myRepeater.Items[1].FindControl("myTextBox");

Edit: You can explicitly set the ClientID for a control. You have to set its ClientIDMode to Static and change the ID when it is databound:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    myRepeater.ItemDataBound += new RepeaterItemEventHandler(myRepeater_ItemDataBound);
    myRepeater.DataSource = new int[3];
    myRepeater.DataBind();
}

void myRepeater_ItemDataBound(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e)
{
    var textbox = e.Item.FindControl("myTextBox");
    textbox.ClientIDMode = ClientIDMode.Static;
    textbox.ID = "myTextBox" + (e.Item.ItemIndex + 1);
}

Gives this HTML:

<input name="myRepeater$ctl01$myTextBox1" type="text" id="myTextBox1" />
<input name="myRepeater$ctl02$myTextBox2" type="text" id="myTextBox2" />
<input name="myRepeater$ctl02$myTextBox3" type="text" id="myTextBox3" />