Question

Is it possible to output only the first instance of a value stored in a data table?

My example is this = I have a datatable wherein each row contains the name of a month. The table is ordered by month, in ascending order. I want to output the name of the month only on its first occurence in the table – if there are five entries with the month January, the text ‘January’ only needs be output once.

I’m using a repeater – code below. The value in Month should only change if it is different to the value in the previous row.

<asp:Repeater ID="rptEvents" runat="server">
    <ItemTemplate>
    <h5><%#Eval("Month")%></h5>     
        <p>
            <strong><asp:HyperLink ID="hlEvents" runat="server" Text='<%#Eval("Title") %>' NavigateUrl='<%#Eval("QuickLink") %>'></asp:HyperLink></strong><br />
    <%#Eval("Date") %><br />
    <%#Eval("Description") %>
    </p>
    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

Answer 1

Well, I’m not sure but how about doing it on the db-side?
SELECT MIN(DISTNCT Month), Title, QuickLink FROM Title, QuickLink

UPDATE:
Seems like I was misunderstood. How about using a method?

<h5><%#GetMonthName(Eval("Month"))%></h5>  

And in code-behind, define a class-scope variable to hold the previous month name and compare it to the current month name in your method:

// this is a private class-scope variable.
private static string prevMonthName = string.Empty;

public string GetMonth(string curMonthName)
{
  if (curMonthName == prevMonthName)
  {
    return string.Empty;
  }
  prevMonthName = curMonthName;
  return curMonthName;
}