Question

My code generates an TextBox on the fly in C# (page_load function). Can I access it in the code later? It does give me compilation error and does not seem to work. Can someone verify ?

Code for additonal problem

aContent += "<table>";
aContent += "<tr><td>lablel </td><td style='bla blah'><input type='textbox' id='col-1' name='col-1'/></td></tr> ... 10 such rows here
</table>"

spanMap.InnerHtml = aContent;

The contents are rendered OK but recusrive iteration does not return the textbox. I am calling it like this

 TextBox txt = (TextBox)this.FindControlRecursive(spanMap, "col-1");
 // txt = (TextBox) spanMapping.FindControl("col-1"); this does not work too
 if (txt != null)
 {
      txt.Text = "A";
 }

Answer 1

Assuming that you’re persisting it correctly, you should be able to access it in code-behind using the FindControl method. Depending on where the control is, you may have to search recursively through the control hierarchy:

private Control FindControlRecursive(Control root, string id)  
{  
    if (root.ID == id) 
    {  
        return root;  
    }  

    foreach (Control c in root.Controls)  
    {  
        Control t = FindControlRecursive(c, id);  
        if (t != null)  
        {  
            return t;  
        }  
    }  

    return null;  
} 

Using FindControlRecursive:

TextBox txt = this.FindControlRecursive(Page.Form, "TextBox1") as TextBox;
if (txt != null)
{
    string text = txt.Text;
}

If you still can’t find it using the above method, make sure that you’re creating the control during after every postback, somwhere before Page_Load, like OnInit.

EDIT

I think you need to change the way you’re adding content to the container. Instead of using a <span>, I would use a Panel, and instead of building markup, simply add controls to the panel in code-behind:

TextBox txt = new TextBox();
txt.ID = String.Format("txt_{0}", Panel1.Controls.Count);
Panel1.Controls.Add(txt);