Question

I was wonder if there is a better way of writing this code.

<%#Eval("hasAccess").Equals(true) ? "<a href='/CaseActivities.aspx?" + Eval("caseURL") + "'>" + Eval("caseName") + "</a>" : Eval("caseName")%> 

I tried <% If (Eval(“hasAccess”) … but asp.net doesnt like that 🙂

I was hoping for something like

<% If Eval("hasAccess") %>
do stuff .. 
<% else %>
do other stuff.

But when using the Eval with IF it get messy .. any thoughts?

Answer 1

You should almost certainly be doing this in code behind, not in scriptlets. In the case of data binding there are a few options:

1. Rather than performing these operations as a part of the data binding, change the underlying data source before binding it so that the data binding itself only takes the value as is.

2. Add a method to the code behind that takes the column and returns the proper value, that way the data binding method just needs to eval a call to that method passing this column.

3. Don’t do the data binding in markup if it is going to be complex; use data binding events in code behind (when available).

Those are listed in the order of preference in which you should try to use them.