Find Controls nested inside Repeater Control

I’m trying to find the values of TextBoxes which are rendered in a Repeater though a UserControl, i.e. the Repeater has a Placeholder for the UserControl, and inside the UserControl is where the TextBox markup actually exists. I’ve done this before with TextBoxes directly inside of a Repeater before, which was fairly straight forward, and I’m wondering why this apparently can’t be accomplished the same way. Here is the Default page with the Repeater, which contains a Placeholder…

 <asp:Content ID="BodyContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent">
<form class="formee">
    <fieldset>
         <legend>Faculty Information</legend>
         <div class="grid-4-12">
             <asp:Label ID="lblFirstName1" runat="server" Text="First Name"></asp:Label>
             <asp:Label ID="lblFirstName2" runat="server" Text="" ></asp:Label>
             <asp:Label ID ="lblSalary" runat="server" Text="" ClientIDMode="Static"></asp:Label>
        </div>
        <div class="grid-6-12">
            <asp:Label ID="lblLastName1" runat="server" Text="Last Name"></asp:Label>
            <asp:Label ID="lblLastName2" runat="server" Text=""></asp:Label>
        </div>
    </fieldset>
</form>
<div id="repeaterDiv">
    <asp:Repeater ID="rptBudget" runat="server" ClientIDMode="Static">
        <ItemTemplate>
                <asp:PlaceHolder ID="phBudget" runat="server" EnableViewState="true" />
                    <br />
        </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:Repeater>

    <asp:Button ID="btnAddBudgetControl" runat="server" Text="Add"
                CausesValidation="false" OnClick="AddBudgetControl" CssClass="addBudgetControl"/>
    <asp:Button ID="btnDisplayEntries" runat="server" Text="Display Entries" CausesValidation="false" OnClick="DisplayEntries" />
</div>
<div>
    <asp:TextBox ID="txtTotalPercent" runat="server"  ClientIDMode="Static"></asp:TextBox>
    <asp:TextBox ID="txtGrandTotal" runat="server" ClientIDMode="Static"></asp:TextBox>
    <asp:Label ID="lblCtrls" runat="server" Text=""></asp:Label>
</div>

…and the UserControl which is inserted in the place of the Placeholder…

 <fieldset>
        <legend>Faculty Salary Form</legend>
        <table cellspacing="10" id="values">
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <asp:Label ID="lblServiceType" runat="server" Text="Service"></asp:Label>
                    <asp:DropDownList runat="server" ID="ddlServiceType" CssClass="serviceType" />
                </td>
                <td>
                    <asp:Label ID="lblSpeedCode" runat="server" Text="Speed Code"></asp:Label>
                    <asp:DropDownList runat="server" ID="ddlSpeedCode" CssClass="speedType" />
                </td>
                <td>
                    <asp:Label ID="lblPercentage" runat="server" Text="Percentage"></asp:Label>
                    <asp:Textbox ID="txtPercentage" runat="server" CssClass="percentCommitment" ClientIDMode="Static" EnableViewState="true" />
                </td>
                <td>
                    <asp:Label ID="lblTotal" runat="server" Text="Total"></asp:Label>
                    <asp:TextBox ID="txtTotal" runat="server" CssClass="amountCommitment" ClientIDMode="Static"  EnableViewState="true"/>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <asp:Button ID="btnRemove" runat="server" Text="Remove Item" OnClick="RemoveItem" ClientIDMode="Static" CssClass="btnRemove" />
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </fieldset>

…but when the following code runs for the Display button’s OnClick, I always get a null value for any and all TextBoxes (and DropDowns) in the UserControl…

protected void DisplayEntries(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    foreach (RepeaterItem repeated in rptBudget.Items)
    {
        TextBox txtPercentage = (TextBox)repeated.FindControl("txtPercentage");
        if (txtPercentage == null)
        {
            lblCtrls.Text += " null; ";
        }
        else
        {
            lblCtrls.Text += txtPercentage.Text + "; ";
        }
    }
}

What’s the best way to access these values? Thanks.

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

txtPercentage Textbox is located inside Usercontrol, so use the following helper method to retrieve it.

Helper Method

public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control root, string id)
{
   if (root.ID == id) 
     return root;

   return root.Controls.Cast<Control>()
      .Select(c => FindControlRecursive(c, id))
      .FirstOrDefault(c => c != null);
}

Usage

foreach (RepeaterItem repeated in rptBudget.Items)
{
   TextBox txtPercentage =            
      (TextBox)FindControlRecursive(repeated, "txtPercentage");  
   ...   
}

Method 2

Try loading the placeholder first and then looking for the textboxes in the placeholder:

Something like this:

pseudo

var ph = repeated.FindControl("phBudget");
var txtBox = ph.FindControl("txtPercentage");

/pseudo

Method 3

You need to first get the UserControl, then use FindControl on the UC itself.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0