Question

I have a repeater defined as

<asp:Repeater id="rep1" runat="server">
<ItemTemplate>
<%#Eval("name")%>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

The code behind is as

 try
        {
            SqlConnection xconn = new SqlConnection();
            xconn.ConnectionString = @"Data Source=XXXXXX;Trusted_Connection=yes;database=master";
            xconn.Open();
            lbl1.Text = "Connected to SQL";
            SqlCommand ycmd = new SqlCommand("select * from student",xconn);
            SqlDataReader dr = ycmd.ExecuteReader();
            cdcatalog.DataSource = dr;
            cdcatalog.DataBind();
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            lbl1.Text= "Cannot connect to SQL";
        }

Why does it not bind the data in the repeater?

Answer 1

Why are you binding data readers to a repeater? I would recommend you using strongly typed objects. So start by defining a model that will represent your data:

public class Student
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

then a method to fetch those students:

public IEnumerable<Student> GetStudents()
{
    using (var conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=XXXXXX;Trusted_Connection=yes;database=master"))
    using (var cmd = conn.CreateCommand())
    {
        conn.Open();
        cmd.CommandText = "SELECT Name FROM Students;";
        using (var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader())
        {
            while (reader.Read())
            {
                yield return new Student
                {
                    Name = reader.GetString(reader.GetOrdinal("Name"));
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

and then bind the repeater:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!IsPostBack)
    {
        rep1.DataSource = GetStudents().ToArray();
        rep1.DataBind();
    }
}

and in the view:

<asp:Repeater id="rep1" runat="server">
    <ItemTemplate>
        <%# Eval("Name") %>
    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

Also note that the name of the repeater is rep1 so that’s what you should use in your code behind.