Question

I am trying to display a number, stored in a dataset as a string, as a phone number. I have a label that Binds to a value but doesn’t display the format that I passed as an arg:

<asp:Label ID="lbl005108002" runat="server" Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "phone number", "{0:(###) ###-####}") %>'></asp:Label>

As a test I tried to pass the formated string into the dataitem but that didn’t work either. Is there something else I need to do in order to use this function?

m_Row("phone number") = String.Format("{0:(###) ###-####}", value)

The value displays in both cases as: 04152543926

Answer 1

I prefer to do the databinding in my codebehind:

<asp:Label ID="lbl005108002" runat="server" Text="" OnDataBinding="lbl005108002_DataBinding"></asp:Label> 

In codebehind:

protected void lbl005108002_DataBinding(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
    Label lbl = (Label)(sender);
    lbl.Text = String.Format("{0:(###) ###-####}", (int)(Eval("phone number")));
}

I think the key is that cast to int so that the formatter knows how to deal with the value you are sending it. I prefer doing this in codebehind because sometimes trying to cram everything inline makes things less explicit.