Question

I have created my first asp.net UserControl that I will use in several places throughout my app. It contains a FormView to display fields of the record in a DataTable.

It all seems fine, except, I can’t figure out how to set the DataSource on the FormView that is within the UserControl. I want to set the DataSource in a method in code-behind.

I see from intellisense that the UserControl does not have a DataSource property, but it does have a DataBind method. I can imagine that one might need to set different DataSources on multiple controls within a UserControl, so there must be some method for drilling into a UserControl, but I cannot figure it out.

Here is the aspx code:

<%@ Register src='Controls/JobDetail.ascx' tagname='JobDetail' tagprefix='uc1' %>   ...  <uc1:JobDetail ID='UserControlJobDetail' runat='server' />  ... 

Here is the method that attempts to set the DataSource:

public void BindJobRecord(string SelectedJobNo) {     UserControlJobDetail.DataSource = LMDataClass.GetJob(SelectedJobNo);     UserControlJobDetail.DataBind(); } 

And here is the UserControl:

<%@ Control Language='C#' AutoEventWireup='true' CodeBehind='JobDetail.ascx.cs' Inherits='DwgDatabase.JobDetail' %>  <asp:FormView ID='fvJobDetail' runat='server' DataKeyNames='job_num'>   <ItemTemplate>    <div style='float: left; border-width: 1px;' class='LabelStyle TextBoxStyle' >     <table>       <tr>        <td><asp:label runat='server' ID='lblJobNo' Text='Job No' /></td>        <td><asp:TextBox runat='server' ID='txtJobNo' Text='<%# Eval('job_num') %>' /></td>       </tr>       <tr>        <td><asp:label runat='server' ID='Label2' Text='Customer' /></td>        <td><asp:TextBox runat='server' ID='txtCustNo' Text='<%# Eval('cust_num') %>' /></td>       </tr>       <tr>         <td><asp:label runat='server' ID='Label3' Text='Quote No' /></td>         <td><asp:TextBox runat='server' ID='txtQuoteNo' Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, 'quote_no', '{0:00000;;.}') %>' /></td>        </tr>        <tr>         <td><asp:label runat='server' ID='Label4' Text='Po No.' /></td>         <td><asp:TextBox runat='server' ID='TextBox4' Text='<%# Eval('p_o_num') %>' /></td>        </tr>     </table>             </div> </ItemTemplate>                </asp:FormView> 

Answer 1

Create a property DataSource on user control like below:

public object DataSource {   get   {     return this.fvJobDetail.DataSource;   }   set   {     this.fvJobDetail.DataSource = value;   } } 

Do the same for the DataBind() method.