Repeater. With the asp Repeater control, we can bind a DataSource and display it on a web page. With ItemTemplate we can specify how each item is displayed.
Code-behind. We must use code-behind in Web Forms to set up the Repeater. We use a List of Strings as the DataSource, and then call DataBind().
Example project. Here we see the Repeater markup in the ASPX page. We specify the ID of the Repeater as rep1, and this is accessed in the C# file.
ItemTemplate Pay close attention to the ItemTemplate. We add an internal Label control, which has the "runat server" attribute set.
Text We use special ASP.NET markup to assign the text of each Label in the Repeater to the Container.DataItem.
And The Container.DataItem in this project gives us the string in the List that is the DataSource.
ASP.NET program that uses ASPX markup, Repeater
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head runat="server">
<title></title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<asp:Repeater id="rep1" runat="server">
<ItemTemplate>
<asp:Label runat="server"
Text="<%# Container.DataItem %>"></asp:Label>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// The list will be used as a DataSource for the repeater.
var items = new List<string>();
items.Add("Bird ");
items.Add("Cat ");
items.Add("Dog ");
// Set DataSource and then call DataBind.
rep1.DataSource = items;
rep1.DataBind();
}
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head><title>
</title></head>
<body>
<form method="post" action="./Default.aspx" id="form1">
<div class="aspNetHidden">
<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATE" id="__VIEWSTATE" value="..." />
</div>
<div>
<span>Bird </span>
<span>Cat </span>
<span>Dog </span>
</div>
<div class="aspNetHidden">
<input type="hidden" name="__VIEWSTATEGENERATOR" id="..." value="CA0B0334" />
</div></form>
<!-- Visual Studio Browser Link -->
<script type="application/json" id="__browserLink_initializationData">
{"appName": "Chrome","requestId": "bcd1d084c851454690b699749f67022a"}
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="..." async="async"></script>
<!-- End Browser Link -->
</body>
</html>
Some notes. If you run this website in Visual Studio, you will see that the Repeater is rendered as 3 span tags in the HTML. These are from the List of Strings.
So We managed to take a List of Strings and use it as the DataSource of a Repeater, which renders the data to the HTML page.
Some notes, continued. To add the Repeater, open the file in Visual Studio, and start typing "repeater." A snippet will be available—press tab to insert the entire Repeater.
Usage. Adding the Repeater and wiring it up with a DataSource is somewhat difficult at first. But with larger or varied data sources, this may be a good approach.
A summary. We use the Repeater alongside the ItemTemplate, Label in ASPX markup. And we used DataSource and DataBind in the code-behind file.