Question

I think it’s obvious that the framework wants use to keep the HTML in the aspx documents, and all code in the code behind to achieve a clean level of separation.

So what do we do when the GridView isn’t good enough?

Should I:

• Use a repeater control to keep HTML in the presentation layer, but be forced to mix business logic in with the HTML
• Or should I mix HTML in with my code behind layer in the form of a StringBuilder?

Let’s pretend that you said use the Repeater control.

Typically to return a product description I would do this:

<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "desc") %>

But then I run into the issue of when I want to only return 150 characters of the desc in case it’s too long. If my datasource was LINQ to SQL I could just create a new string:

string s = q.desc.lengh > 150 ? q.desc.SubString(0,150) + "..." : q.desc;

How would I do the same inside the repeater within the aspx document if it is preferred I use the repeater?

Answer 1

I would use a Repeater, making html in code behind is messy and hard to maintain.

No reason why you can’t use helper methods in the code behind (or elsewhere) to do this

<%# SomeMethod(Eval("desc")) %>

Or on the property of the class you are repeating, have an alternative version with a getter

public class SomeItem
{
    public string Desc { get; set; }

    public string DescSummary
    {
        get
        {
            return Desc.Length > 150 ? string.Format("{0}...", Desc.Substring(0, 150)) : Desc;
        }
    }
}

And in the repeater eval DescSummary