Question

OK I have a GridView and there is a column that I want to be a link if a file exists, otherwise I just want it to be a label. Right now I am changing the controls on RowDataBound event handler using the Row passed in the args. I am not a big fan of this as I am hard coding the column ID, and if it ever changes I will need to remember to change this code. I was hoping I could do a conditional in the asp code to add a link if a property value is not null otherwise add a label. Is this possible? Any different solutions?

I would like something like this:

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Status">
   <ItemTemplate>
    <%# if (Eval("LogFileName") == null)
    <%#{ 
          <asp:LinkButton ID="LogFileLink" runat="server" CommandArgument='<% #Eval("LogFileName") %>' CommandName="DownloadLogFile" Text='<%# Blah.NDQA.Core.Utilities.GetEnumerationDescription(typeof(Blah.NDQA.Core.BatchStatus), Eval("Status")) %>'>
    <%# }
    <%# else
    <%#{
          <asp:Label ID="LogFileLabel" runat="server"Text='<%# Blah.NDQA.Core.Utilities.GetEnumerationDescription(typeof(Blah.NDQA.Core.BatchStatus), Eval("Status")) %>'>
          </asp:Label>
    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>

Answer 1

If you’re going to be doing this a lot, I suggest writing your own field. The simplest approach is probably to make a NullableHyperlinkField inheriting from HyperlinkField, and render out a plain string if the anchor’s URL would otherwise be null.