ASP.NET Tutorial. How to use Repeater

Publish date: Tuesday October 28, 2008

In this article, I'll show you how to use Repeater in ASP.NET page.

Here is an example of Repeater:

I store the user in table "Client_NetroStar" in SQL Server. There are five fields in the table:

ID
Login
FirstName
LastName
DateAdded

1. First Step - Insert the Repeater Control on page.

Repeater control allows you to create templates. For example you can use a template to customize the layout of the individual rows.

HeaderTemplate - template for elements that you want to render once before your ItemTemplate section.
ItemTemplate - template for elements that are rendered once per row of data.
AlternatingItemTemplate - template for elements that are rendered every other row of data. This allows you to alternate background colors, for example.
SeparatorTemplate - template for elements to render between each row, such as line breaks.
FooterTemplate - template for elements that you want to render once after your ItemTemplate section.

Here is the part of the “ClientNetroStar.aspx” page that contains Repeater:

<asp:Repeater ID="rptList" runat="server" OnItemDataBound="rptList_ItemDataBound">
   <HeaderTemplate>
      <table>
         <tr>
            <th>
               <asp:Label ID="Label14" Text="Login" runat="server"></asp:Label>
            </th>
            <th>
               <asp:Label ID="Label1" Text="First Name" runat="server"></asp:Label>
            </th>
            <th>
               <asp:Label ID="Label2" Text="Last Name" runat="server"></asp:Label>
            </th>
            <th>
               <asp:Label ID="Label3" Text="Date Added" runat="server"></asp:Label>
            </th>
            <th>
               <asp:Label ID="Label6" Text="Delete" runat="server"></asp:Label>
            </th>
         </tr>
   </HeaderTemplate>
   <ItemTemplate>
      <tr>
         <td>
            <asp:LinkButton ID="lbnLogin" Text='<%# Eval("Login") %>' runat="server"
               OnClick="lnkClient_Click" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("ID").ToString() %>'>
            </asp:LinkButton>
         </td>
         <td>
            <asp:LinkButton ID="lbnFirstName" Text='<%# Eval("FirstName").ToString() %>' runat="server"
               OnClick="lnkClient_Click" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("ID").ToString() %>'>
            </asp:LinkButton>
         </td>
         <td>
            <asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton2" Text='<%# Eval("LastName").ToString() %>' runat="server"
               OnClick="lnkClient_Click" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("ID").ToString() %>'>
            </asp:LinkButton>
         </td>
         <td>
            <asp:LinkButton ID="LinkButton1" Text='<%# Eval("DateAdded") %>' runat="server"
               OnClick="lnkClient_Click" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("ID").ToString() %>'>
            </asp:LinkButton>
         </td>
         <td>
            <asp:LinkButton ID="lbnDelete" Text="delete"  runat="server" 
               OnClick="lbnDelete_Click" CommandArgument='<%# Eval("ID").ToString() %>'>
            </asp:LinkButton>
         </td>
      </tr>
   </ItemTemplate>
   <FooterTemplate>
      </table>
   </FooterTemplate>
 </asp:Repeater>

The Repeater has an attribute ID= "rptList". It is used in Code Behind (ClientNetroStar.aspx.cs) . Repeater uses the HeaderTemplate to insert <table> . Then it uses the ItemTemplate to display a LinkButton control that has our data in it. I'll come back to this in the next step.

The FooterTemplate is not necessary, but I put it in </table>.

2. Second Step - Get the Data to Repeater.

Here is the Page_Load event in the Code Behind file.

The first five lines open a database connection and retrieve the contents of the Client_NetroStar table. The last two lines bind our Repeater control to the DataReader.

We can use also MyGeneration to get data. Read more in Introduction to myGeneration and dOOdads.

Author: Mariusz Siergijewicz

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ASP.NET Tutorial. How to use Repeater

In this article, I'll show you how to use Repeater in ASP.NET page.

1. First Step - Insert the Repeater Control on page.

2. Second Step - Get the Data to Repeater.

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