Question

For an unknown reason, I have 1 page that I can’t access by ID to any of the component.

Here is some informations. The page use asp:Content because the website use MasterPage. Inside the asp:Content, this page has a asp:FormView with some data that I cannot access from the CodeBehind.

Here is the Page declaration:

Here is the code in the page behind that doesn’t compile :

protected void FormView1_PreRender(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    DateBirthdayValidator.MaximumValue = DateTime.Now.Date.ToString("dd-MM-yy");
}

Here is the error :

Error 2 The name ‘DateBirthdayValidator’ does not exist in the current context

I have search in google, I got some answer about using FindControl but it doesn’t work. Any idea?

Edit1:

I can access the FormView1 component but no the validator inside the EditItemTemplate. How can I access control that is inside the EditTemplate?

Edit2:

If I try: FormView1.FindControl("DateBirthdayValidator") it compile but always return null. So still doesn’t work but at least I can access the FormView1…

Answer 1

protected void FormView1_PreRender(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if(FormView1.CurrentMode == FormViewMode.Edit)
        ((RangeValidator)FormView1.FindControl("DateBirthdayValidator")).MaximumValue = DateTime.Now.Date.ToString("dd-MM-yy");
}

The FormView doesn’t have the control created until it’s in the mode you want. Since the DateBirhdayValidator was in the Edit Mode, it required to have a validation in the CodeBehind to be sure to Find the control only when the state is in edit.

I found the solution here, see the post from Steven Cheng[MSFT].