Question

This might be a ridiculously easy question, but it has me stumped. I have a web form where I’m trying to create a hyperlink in the code behind to a file server share, e.g. file://myServer/Shared/, but when the page is rendered, the link doesn’t include the server name, i.e. file:///Shared/. I don’t know why this happens. Any help or insight is appreciated.

UPDATE:

Sure, here is the snippet where the link is being set.

    //The link is embedded in a table
    HyperLink link = (HyperLink)e.Row.Cells[1].Controls[0];
    link.NavigateUrl = @"file://myServer/Shared/";

As a test, I assigned the link to a string value and the link prints the expected url.

string foo = link.NavigateUrl;

//Displays this
"file://myServer/Shared/"

I don’t know why this doesn’t appear when the link is rendered in the final page.

UPDATE 2:

Ok, so I know I have to set the absolute path in the code-behind, I thought that’s what I was doing, but it still won’t render correctly.

UPDATE 3:

I followed pjacobs suggestion about setting the test property and it was actually a step in the right direction. I have the following:

link.Text = "<a href=\"file:\\myServer\\Shared\">link text</a>";

Now the link gets rendered as follows: file:///myServer/Shared. I’m almost there except it gives the extra ‘/’ in front of the server name. I’ll keep playing with it, this seems like it should be so simple, I don’t understand why ASP.Net renders the URL differently.

Answer 1

You have to set the Text property of the HyperLink… link.Text = “whatever”