Develop Reference

Looping through controls on a page using a masterpage

I'm trying to perform an operation on every control on a page that is inherited from a masterpage. I don't know how to access the child pages controls. I have tried recursively getting to my controls like this:
private void checkControls(ControlCollection controlcollection)
{
foreach (Control control in controlcollection)
{
if (control.Controls.Count > 0)
{
Debug.WriteLine(control.GetType().ToString());
checkControls(control.Controls);
}
else
{
Debug.WriteLine(control.GetType().ToString());
}
}
The method is called like this:
protected void resettodefault()
{
checkControls(this.Page.Controls);
}
However, the only controls that are printed from this execution are:
ASP.site_master
System.Web.UI.LiteralControl
I would prefer to access my controls directly (without recursion). Otherwise, how can I modify my recursion to get to the desired page's controls?

I would suggest using a base page instead of a master page, this way your logic for iterating over controls (and whatever you will do with that afterwards) is not tied to which master page a page is using.
As far as getting all the controls on the page, because the controls are hierarchical, as is the HTML they represent, so iterating over them recursively makes sense. However if you are dead set on not recursively getting controls something like this should work:
IEnumerable<Control> GetAllControls()
{
var allControls = new List<Control>();
var currentControls = new Queue<Control>();
currentControls.Enqueue(this.Page);
while (currentControls.Count >0)
{
var c = currentControls.Dequeue();
if (!allControls.Contains(c))
{
allControls.Add(c);
if (c.Controls != null && c.Controls.Count > 0)
{
foreach (Control e in c.Controls)
{
currentControls.Enqueue(e);
}
}
}
}
return allControls;
}
The last thing to consider is the lifecycle of the page, and when you iterate over the controls. If you try to walk to control tree too early not all controls may exist.
EDIT: Updated code.
Update
For validation purposes I would highly recommend using the built in validation controls of asp.net. You can read more about them here. This has the added benefit of providing validation on the client, providing faster UI responses and easing the load off the servers.
For resetting all the textboxes. I would recommend creating a new class for this purpose, then calling upon that class when needed instead of messing with the master page:
public class UIControlsHelper
{
public static void ClearTextboxes(Page page)
{
GetAllControls(page)
.Where(x => typeof(TextBox).IsAssignableFrom(x.GetType())
.ToList()
.ForEach(x => (TextBox)x.Text = string.Empty);
}
IEnumerable<Control> GetAllControls(Page page)
// Same as above, but with the page parameter replaced.
}
}
And in any of your pages:
UIControlsHelper.ClearTextboxes(this);

To access the controls in your child page do the following steps:
1-declare a variable of the type you want to access. For example if you want to access a Label in your child page use:
Label lbl_child=this.ContentPlaceHolder1.findcontrol("your label id in child page") as Label;
Now you have your label and you are free to make changes on it. Every change on this control will be reflected on the child control.
ContentPlaceHolder1 is your contentplace holder id so change it with your content id.

public void ClearTextboxes(Page page) {
GetAllControls(page)
.Where(x => typeof(TextBox).IsAssignableFrom(x.GetType()))
.ToList()
.ForEach(x => ((TextBox)x).Enabled=false);
}

Set Properties of User Control on Event Using FindControl

I have a user control that is dynamically loaded in the the page load:
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
MyControl ctl = (MyControl)LoadControl(controlPath);
ctl.ID = "mycontrol";
this.MyControlPlaceHolder.Controls.Add(ctl);
}
Front End of the Page:
<asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="MyControlPlaceHolder"></asp:PlaceHolder>
I have an click event on the page that initiates and postback and calls a method where I'm trying to find the control and set some properties:
MyControl ctl = (MyControl)FindControl("mycontrol");
if (ctl != null){
ctl.MyProperty = true;
Response.Write("success");
}
else
Response.Write("fail");
This is writing fail after the postback, so it seems like I'm doing something incorrectly in finding the control. What is the best way to do this?
EDIT:
I switched it to MyControl ctl = (MyControl)this.MyControlPlaceHolder.FindControl("mycontrol");
This made it so it was finding the control, however, when the control loads after the postback, it appears as though the property is not set.

You have to use a recursive FindControl implementation because FindControl will only find direct childs. Your control is inserted in a naming container at a lower level. A generic FindControlRecurisve from MSDN:
private Control FindControlRecursive(Control rootControl, string controlID)
{
if (rootControl.ID == controlID) return rootControl;
foreach (Control controlToSearch in rootControl.Controls)
{
Control controlToReturn =
FindControlRecursive(controlToSearch, controlID);
if (controlToReturn != null) return controlToReturn;
}
return null;
}
from MSDN
Or, if you only have one specific conatiner like in your sample:
MyControl ctl = this.MyControlPlaceHolder.FindControl("mycontrol");
if (ctl != null){
ctl.MyProperty = true;
Response.Write("success");
}
else
Response.Write("fail");
ViewState enable your control
public class MyControl:Control
{
public bool MyProperty
{
get
{
return ViewState["my"] != null? (bool) ViewState["my"]: false;
}
set
{
ViewState["my"] = value;
}
}
}

Try moving the code to dynamically add the control into Init instead of load. I can't be sure but there are a lot of things that happen between Init and Load and if your control is not present and accounted for it may cause issues like this.

You added the Control in the controls collection of a placeholder.
Apart of what control is your dynamically created control, if you want to looking for your dynamically added control in that way you have to do a recursive search starting from the root (maybe the page), so, if you surf over the net, you could find good solutions for that.
Personally I prefer solutions with: generics support and expressed as extension methods, so you could use the solution everywhere. These are some usefull links
Recursive Find Control with generics
Recursive Find Control with generics by extension method
Recursive Find Control with generics by extension method and linq support/example
hope this helps

ASP.NET How to access a deeply nested user control on the parent page

I have a login control and at is nested 2 deep in a header control
i.e Page --> Header Control --> Login Control. I cannot get a reference to the control on the page using FindControl. I want to be able to set the visible property of the control like
if (_loginControl != null)
_loginControl.Visible = false;
I ended up using a recursive FindControl method to find the nested control.
public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control root, string id)
{
if (root.ID == id)
{
return root;
}
foreach (Control c in root.Controls)
{
Control t = FindControlRecursive(c, id);
if (t != null)
{
return t;
}
}
return null;
}

Are you needing to disable/hide the User Control from the ASP.NET page it resides on (or does the User Control exist on a master page, say)? If it's in the same page, then in your ASP.NET page's code-behind you'd do:
MyUserControlsID.Visible = false
Where MyUserControl is the ID of your User Control. To determine the ID of your User Control look at the markup of your .aspx page and you will see something like this:
<uc1:UserControlName ID="MyUserControlsID" runat="server" ... />
Happy Programming!

A good way would be to use:
Page.FindControl()
if that yields null, the control is not there.

Try calling this.FindControl("_loginControl") or this.Page.FindControl("_loginControl").
See MSDN for method details:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.ui.control.findcontrol.aspx

The login control, if it's registered in the markup, will also be an instance member of your codebehind page; you can refer to it from the codebehind class as if it were a normal member, using the same name you provided as the ID (I do recommend using codebehinds for most logic, instead of inlining code in the markup, BTW).
You can also use the FindControl() method of your page, which will search its control subtree for a control with a given ID. That takes longer, so I would recommend the first option unless the logic control is added dynamically and you don't always know it's there.

private List<Control> GetAllNestedUserControl(Control ph)
{
List<Control> Get = new List<Control>();
foreach (var control in ph.Controls)
{
if (control is UserControl)
{
UserControl uc = control as UserControl;
if (uc.HasControls())
{
Get = GetAllNestedUserControl(uc);
}
}
else
{
Control c = (Control)control;
if (!(control is LiteralControl))
{
Get.Add(c);
}
}
}
return Get;
}
just call this code from you any parent page and then get any control by the following code
List<Control> Get = GetAllNestedUserControl(ph);
Label l = (Label)Get.Find(o => o.ID == "lblusername");
l.Text = "changed from master";

How to Dynamically get All controls (and it's IDs) in an aspx Page?

HEllo, I need to dynamically activate fields in a page according to the service that is going to be executed...
Let me explain:
There's a page with all the possible fields and a ListBox with all the selected services to be executed, then when the user selects which service to execute (change a car plate, for example), then I need to activate only the field(s) that the service require... (The realationship between Services and Fields are stored in a database).
public void CheckAll(int pService_Id, Control pPage)
{
foreach (Control control in pPage.Controls)
{
busExecutaServico vExecuta = new busExecutaServico();
if (vExecuta.EnableField(control.ID.ToString(), Convert.ToInt32(listBoxServices.SelectedValue)))
{
switch (control.GetType().ToString())
{
case "TextBox":
TextBox controleText = (TextBox)Page.FindControl(control.ID.ToString());
controleText.Enabled = true;
break;
Note that busExecutaServico is the class which contains the method (EnableField) for checking if the selected item matches any field on the database..
I can't seem to get the control.ID.ToString() to work properly (the ID always comes as NULL)
If anyone can help me solve this, or if there's another way (even if it's completely different from what i'm trying), it would be of great help. thanks

I like to use a recursive function for locating controls by either type or ID.
public Control FindControlRecursive(Control rootControl, string controlId)
{
if (rootControl.ID == controlId)
return rootControl;
foreach (Control control in rootControl.Controls)
{
Control foundControl = FindControlRecursive(control, controlId);
if (foundControl != null)
{
return foundControl;
}
}
return null;
}
public Control FindControlRecursive(Control rootControl, Type type)
{
if (rootControl.GetType().Equals(type))
return rootControl;
foreach (Control control in rootControl.Controls)
{
Control foundControl = FindControlRecursive(control, type);
if (foundControl != null)
{
return foundControl;
}
}
return null;
}
You can adapt these to first return a collection of controls, then process them later. Might be easier to keep track of what's happening.
I learned this technique here: http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/5127.aspx

Be aware that FindControl only searches the current naming container so Page.FindControl will only find controls that are added directly to Page. For example, if you had a repeater control that had the controls you were looking for and it was added to Page, you could find your repeater control via Page.FindControl but it wouldn't find child controls within your repeater, you'd have to recursively perform the FindControl on all container controls in the page.
This might seem a bit strange but it allows you to have controls with the same ID existing on the same page. For example, if you had 10 instances of a user control with textboxes within them called "MyName", you'd really want them to not being over-writing each other's 'MyName' fields!

Your code will come across a null for an ID unless every control has been given an ID.
Also why use:-
TextBox controleText = (TextBox)Page.FindControl(control.ID.ToString());
at all instead of:-
TextBox controleText = (TextBox)control;
and indeed since you only want to change the Enabled property consider:-
((WebControl)control).Enabled = False;
That I suspect will eliminate many case statements.

In your code you don't need to search any control - you already have it in 'control' variable. You even don't need to cast it to TextBox, just to a WebControl, just do this:
...
if (vExecuta.EnableField(control.ID.ToString(), Convert.ToInt32(listBoxServices.SelectedValue)))
((WebControl)control).Enabled = true;
P.S. control.ID is already string, so you should remove any ID.ToString() also.

ASP.Net FindControl is not working - How come?

I have used FindControl in the past, prior to .NET 2.0/3.0. It seems like now, for some reason, the ID's of my controls get a funky named assigned. For example I assigned an id "cbSelect" to a checkbox, but FindControl does not find it. When I view the HTML it was assigned ctl00_bodyPlaceHolder_ctl02_cbSelect.
I have not found one example of FindControl that mentions that. In fact everyone seems to just use find control like normal.
So, am I doing something wrong? Did .Net change? Can anyone shed some light onto this for me, it is really frustrating!

You are probably using a MasterPage or user controls (ascx) and this is the reason the for client ids change. Imagine you have a control in the master page with the same id as one in the page. This would result in clashes. The id changes ensures all ClientID properties are unique on a page.
FindControl needs some special attention when working with MasterPages. Have a look at ASP.NET 2.0 MasterPages and FindControl(). The FindControl works inside a naming container. The MastePage and the page are different naming containers.

You could write extender to find any control on page using recursion.
This could be in some Util/Helper class.
public static Control FindAnyControl(this Page page, string controlId)
{
return FindControlRecursive(controlId, page.Form);
}
public static Control FindAnyControl(this UserControl control, string controlId)
{
return FindControlRecursive(controlId, control);
}
public static Control FindControlRecursive(string controlId, Control parent)
{
foreach (Control control in parent.Controls)
{
Control result = FindControlRecursive(controlId, control);
if (result != null)
{
return result;
}
}
return parent.FindControl(controlId);
}

I've had pretty good luck working around this problem in "most" cases with a simple extension method
You can call it on whatever higher-level container control you think best, including the Page itself if you want to scan the entire control hierarchy.
private static Control FindControlIterative(this Control control, string id)
{
Control ctl = control;
LinkedList<Control> controls = new LinkedList<Control>();
while(ctl != null)
{
if(ctl.ID == id)
{
return ctl;
}
foreach(Control child in ctl.Controls)
{
if(child.ID == id)
{
return child;
}
if(child.HasControls())
{
controls.AddLast(child);
}
}
ctl = controls.First.Value;
controls.Remove(ctl);
}
return null;
}

When searching for a control in a control collection, always use the id you assigned the control, not the one you see in the source post render. If FindControl() does not find the control you know exists, there is a good chance that you are not searching in the right branch of the control hierarchy. A recursive function has been successful for me.
Here is my example of what I use for VB.NET 3.5:
Function FindControlRecursive(ByVal ctrl As Control, ByVal id As String) As Control
Dim c As Control = Nothing
If ctrl.ID = id Then
c = ctrl
Else
For Each childCtrl In ctrl.Controls
Dim resCtrl As Control = FindControlRecursive(childCtrl, id)
If resCtrl IsNot Nothing Then c = resCtrl
Next
End If
Return c
End Function
Here is an example of how I would topically implement this function in my base page class:
Dim form HtmlForm = CType(FindControlRecursive(Me, "Form"), HtmlForm)

This is the VB.NET code that worked for me:
<Extension()> _
Function FindChildControlById(ByVal controlToStartWith As Control, ByVal controlIdToFind As String) As Control
If controlToStartWith Is Nothing Then Return Nothing
If controlToStartWith.ID = controlIdToFind Then Return controlToStartWith
For Each childControl As Control In controlToStartWith.Controls
Dim resCtrl As Control = FindChildControlById(childControl, controlIdToFind)
If resCtrl IsNot Nothing Then Return resCtrl
Next childControl
Return Nothing
End Function ' Function FindChildControlById(ByVal controlToStartWith As Control, ByVal controlIdToFind As String) As Control
Credit goes to George for the initial VB.NET code. I only modified it a teeny bit, with 2 functional change: mine doesn't error if/when null/Nothing is passed as the input control, and mine is implemented as an Extension. My other 3 minor changes don't affect the functionality, but to me, they were code simplifications. But I know it's very subjective.
So this method can be used with:
Dim c1 As Control = Page.FindChildControlById("aspControlID")
And if you want to convert it into a specific child class of a Control, like this:
Dim c1 As Control = Page.FindChildControlById("aspControlID")
Dim c As HyperLink = TryCast(c1, HyperLink)
Update: My function is now named 'FindChildControlById' (previously was 'FindMiControl'). I liked SpeedNet's suggestion better.

When it's rendering the html, ASP.NET will prefix all the control IDs with the IDs of the naming containers (User Controls etc..) in a hierarchy going back all the way to the document root. This ensures that all the IDs are unique for post backs etc..
This does not effect using FindControl where you should use the ID in the original markup.

Here is a reference as to how web form controls are named...
Web Forms Control Identification