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Possible Duplicate:
Does anyone beside me just NOT get ASP.NET MVC?

I dont know ASP.NET very well ATM. I took a look at MVC 2 in 2010 beta2 and notice my host will not support it. Since my app is heavily backend base and a light interface i thought regular ASP.NET should do a find job.

In either case i find it extremely annoying to write

<div>
<% foreach(var link in Html.Encode(ViewData["Links"])) { %>
<a href="<%=link%>"><%=link%></a><br>
<% } %>
<div>

I find it a lot easier to use Response.Write or to return a string with the html inside a @"" string. This example is simplified, i have some fairly complex data to display. Am i missing something or should i write any complex html in my C# source code?

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3 Answers3

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You can use Response.Write if you wish, but I suggest you take a look at the Repeater control for tasks such as this. You can either use templating and data binding or handle the ItemDataBound event.

Jamie Ide
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Oh, boy.

Don't put your code in with the markup. Use a repeater or listview control. Code such as loops, etc belongs in the code behind (.cs) file.

One of the great things about the ASP.NET page model is near-complete separation of code and markup. If you find yourself putting <% and %> in your markup, take a long, long moment and ask yourself why what you're doing isn't in a code file instead.

Conversely, if you find yourself generating markup in your code-behind, take another long, long moment and ask yourself why. Repeaters, listviews and the like are very tight, very fast and designed for this task. Use the tools available the way they were meant to be used, and keep your code and markup separate.

Update: In response to the comment below.

If all you want to do is emit an anchor, do this:

markup:

<a runat="server" id="anchorMyLink">My link</a>

code-behind:

void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  anchorMyLink.InnerText="Text that user sees as link";
  anchorMyLink.Href="http://www.google.com";
}

This is assuming that you just want to emit a single link, not something that lives in a repeating list (like in table or a list of rows). Server controls (anything with a runat="server" attribute) can all be modified in this way in code-behind.

3Dave
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  • Is there an easier way to write the ahref link? I took a look at the repeater. It looks like either way i need to write <% twice, one for the link and again for the inner text –  Jan 04 '10 at 03:57
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This is very similar to a question asked earlier that I answered at length:

Does anyone beside me just not get asp.net MVC?

Mine is the top answer as it was accepted. I'll just leave the link rather than copying it all here but I strongly suggest that you look at it as I think it will address your questions and concerns.

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Mark Brittingham
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  • Based on your answer, a few google searches and some time thinking. I think i'll just redirect all pages into lazy.aspx and output the code by hand. Not because i dont want to learn webforms or more MVC but because i am not writing web controls. –  Jan 04 '10 at 04:38
  • Zombie - if you are serious then I think that you'll regret doing everything by hand. With webforms, you don't have to write web controls at all. I've written a few in my day but, with the move to ASP.NET 3.5 (and Master pages earlier) you won't find any custom controls in the over 270 pages that now make up my application! Anyway, thanks for choosing this as "the" answer. – Mark Brittingham Jan 04 '10 at 04:59