Question

I want to access the data that was databound to my list view when handling list view events such as:

protected void List_ItemDataBound(object sender, ListViewItemEventArgs e)

or

protected void List_ItemCommand(object sender, ListViewCommandEventArgs e)

Inside the events, I can not access the data via somthing like Eval("ID")

Currently we are using a very hacky solution:

string id = e.Item.FindControl("lblID").Text;

Where lblID is a hidden control that is populated with data in the aspx file using:

<asp:Label ID="lblID" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("ID") %>' />

My eyes bleed when I look at this, Is there a better way?

Answer 1

After a bit of tinkering I found the proper solution:

Data keys need to be added to the list view. Data keys are persistent unlike the data that is databound to a listview. To set the data key just specify the name in the ListView tag:

<asp:ListView ID="MyListview" runat="server" DataKeyNames="ID" ...... 

Then to access the keys from the event:

protected void MyListView_ItemCommand(object sender, ListViewItemEventArgs e)
{
    // Get the item index of the Item
    int itemIndex = ((ListViewDataItem)e.Item).DisplayIndex;

    // Extract the key and cast it to its data type.
    DataKey key = ((ListView)sender).DataKeys[itemIndex];
    int myId = (int) key;

    // Use ID to delete / modify the item in the SQL database....
}