Why is it so hard to access textboxes that are in FormViews or GridViews from Code Behind

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Hi
I've been trying for so long to try and find out why I can't access Textboxes mainly but also labels or any other controls that are placed inside a GridView (or FormView).

I have a need to put a Textbox inside a Custom GridView template that will allow users to enter a date and then click on Submit to post this date to the database.

I like to try and handle all Insert commands in the codebehind file, but Intellisense won't recognise the names of the Textboxes.

Please could somebody simply explain how I reference these textboxes in the GridView.

Thanks in advance.

Pete

--------------------------------------------------------

Thanks guys for the answers so far, most helpful but I'm still being thick and can't get it working:

Right here's a little more. I've included the code behind below and what I want to happen is this:

When the user clicks on the Select link in the GridView "ActionsGridView" (the standard Allow Selection Link for GridViews) it will take the value of TextBox "ActionDateCompText" and then update this in the database.

I am using a SqlDataConnection called "ActionsAddActionConn" and the Code Behind update parameters are as follows:

C#

protected void ActionsGridView_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    ActionsAddActionConn.UpdateParameters["ACTION_STATUS_ID"].DefaultValue = "12";
    ActionsAddActionConn.UpdateParameters["ACTION_COMPLETED_DATE"].DefaultValue = DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString();
    ActionsAddActionConn.Update();
}

I want the entry of "ACTION_COMPLETED_DATE" to be the Value of the TextBox "ActionDateCompText" in the GridView.

Hope this helps you all to get me on the right track (or am I doing it all wrong)?

Posted 17-Nov-10 3:10am

codemagpie

Updated 17-Nov-10 3:42am

v2

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4 solutions

Solution 1

You can't access the controls directly because they're in a template. In the case of the GridView, on your GridView_RowUpdating event, you can do something like this to find controls in that row:

C#

GridViewRow row = myGridView.Rows[e.RowIndex];

TextBox txt = row.FindControl("ID_OF_TEXTBOX") as TextBox;

After you've found your control, it's business as usual.

Posted 17-Nov-10 3:26am

jim lahey

Solution 2

Hi,

There is no way you can directly access textbox placed under gridview.But there is workaround, you can try this

C#

foreach (GridViewRow item in grvCustomers.Rows)
       {
            TextBox txtFirstName = item.FindControl("txtFirstName") as TextBox;
       }

Considering that your gridview id is grvCustomers and your desired textbox id is txtFirstName

You can write this inside Submit button click event where you need to retrieve all user entered data and send all them to database insert/update .

Hope this will help.

Posted 17-Nov-10 3:28am

Shahriar Iqbal Chowdhury/Galib

Solution 3

Hi,

look at this solution : jQuery'ish Selector for WebControls - recursive FindControl[^]

I'm using this, but I extended this class with a few extension methods so it is much more productive. :-D

Posted 17-Nov-10 4:12am

Martin Arapovic

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Sandesh M Patil · Accepted Answer · 2010-11-17T05:13:00

Try this

protected void ActionsGridView_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e))
{
 ActionsAddActionConn.UpdateParameters["ACTION_STATUS_ID"].DefaultValue = "12";
    ActionsAddActionConn.UpdateParameters["ACTION_COMPLETED_DATE"].DefaultValue = DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString();

   foreach (GridViewRow row in GridView1.Rows)
   {
      
      Control ctrl = row.FindControl("txtdate") as Textbox;
        if (ctrl != null)
        {
            Textbox txtdate=(Textbox)ctrl;
ActionsAddActionConn.UpdateParameters["ActionDateCompText"].DefaultValue=   txtdate.Text;

           
      
        }
   }
}