Cant find control inside repeater item

Question

I am using repeater:

<asp:Repeater ID="rptCategories" runat="server" OnItemDataBound="RptCategories_ItemDataBound">
            <ItemTemplate>
                <asp:Panel CssClass="category-wrapper" ID="pnlCategory" runat="server">
                    <%# Eval("SponsorshipCategoryName") %>
                    <asp:HiddenField runat="server" ID="hdnCategoryID" Value='<%# Eval("SponsorshipCategoryID") %>' />
                </asp:Panel>
            </ItemTemplate>
        </asp:Repeater>

Depening on my category type I add RadionButtonList or list of check boxes to panel in my code behind.

I set id:

rblItems.ID = "rbl_" + category.SponsorshipCategoryID;

and then put control in panel:

panel.Controls.Add(rblItems);

Now I nead to be able to loop though all category panels and get those radio button lists or checkboxes.

For this I loop though rptCategories.Items

  foreach (RepeaterItem rptItem in rptCategories.Items)
           {
               var hdnCategoryID = rptItem.FindControl(HdnCategoryID_ID) as 
                  HiddenField;
               var pnlCategory = rptItem.FindControl(PnlCategory_ID) as Panel;
               var categoryID = (hdnCategoryID == null || hdnCategoryID.Value == 
               string.Empty) ? 0 : int.Parse(hdnCategoryID.Value);
           }

It finds hidden field and panel just fine. But when I am trying to find control inside my panel with ID I am interested in it returns null.

var control = pnlCategory.FindControl("rbl_" + categoryToUpdate.SponsorshipCategoryID);

I can't use item databound event here. Any ideas what the issues can be?

try adding ClientIDMode="Static" <br> <asp:Repeater ID="rptCategories" runat="server" ClientIDMode="Static"OnItemDataBound="RptCategories_ItemDataBound"> — skhurams

Shai Cohen Shai Cohen · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-24T17:12:02

It can be one of two issues (or maybe both):

You are adding controls dynamically: panel.Controls.Add(rblItems). In order for you to be able to retrieve these dynamically added controls they must be re-added on each Postback. IMHO, the best place to add dynamically added controls is during the OnInit() event.
As @skhurams noted: there may be a problem with the IDs of the dynamically added controls. Although you are explicitly setting the ID for each control, a Repeater will automatically change these IDs to ensure no ID is repeated on a specific page. The best way to see if this is the case is to view the source of the generated web page. Check to see if the ID is different from what you expect. You can choose to set the ClientIDMode to "Static", but make sure that each ID is truly unique.

Cant find control inside repeater item

1 Answers