Question

I have a Repeater nested inside of a GridView. On the RowDataBound event for the GridView, I set the DataSource (based on one of the row’s columns) and then bind the Repeater. This works fine for the initial load, however I need to be able to add new items to the Repeater dynamically.

I append an item to the DataSource, save it to the ViewState, and where I would normally bind using a method call, I bind to the object saved to the ViewState instead. The DataSouce reflects the change, however the page does not.

What am I missing? I have the exact same setup on another page without the nesting and it works perfectly.

if (ViewState["RepeaterObj"]!=null)
{
   rpt.DataSource=(IList<DataTransferObject>)ViewState["RepeaterObj"];
}
else
{
   rpt.DataSource = controller.GetObj(param);
   rpt.DataBind();
}

Answer 1

I ended up resolving the question by cutting out use of the ViewState entirely, though I thought my temporary DataSource would be lost across the postback it wasn’t. I ended up going with a class-level variable which works perfectly. It seems I didn’t properly understand what happens during a postback.