Is Repeater efficient to bind serializable DataStructures

Question

I have been using repeaters to bind a nested collection. Basically what I am doing is, display all the elements & values in WebPage.

My approach has been, to use nested repeaters and bind a level below repeater datasource in current ItemDataBount Event (please refer code below)

It is a lot of copy & paste task to create controls for each & every item and bind that data using Eval.

Considering the fact that DataSource is serializable, Is this efficient & simplest way to Bind Nested Collections ?

<asp:Repeater ID="rpt1" OnItemDataBound="rpt1_ItemDataBound" runat="server">   
    <ItemTemplate>

        <asp:Label ID="lblSomeProperty" Text='<%#Eval("SomeProperty") %>' runat="server" />
        <%--few other controls--%>
        <asp:Repeater ID="rpt2"OnItemDataBound="rpt2_ItemDataBound" runat="server">
            <ItemTemplate>

            <asp:Label ID="Label1" Text='<%#Eval("SomeOtherProperty") %>' runat="server" />
                <asp:Repeater ID="rpt3" runat="server">
                    <ItemTemplate>
                    <asp:Label ID="Label1" Text='<%#Eval("SomeMoreProperty") %>' runat="server" />
                    </ItemTemplate>
                </asp:Repeater>

            </ItemTemplate>
        </asp:Repeater>

    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

CodeBehind:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!IsPostBack)
    {
        rpt1.DataSource = //RootElement IEnumerable
    }
}

protected void rpt1_ItemDataBound(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e)
{
    //proceed only if ItemTemplate OR AlternatingItemTemplate

    //populate user control values from DataItem in current context
    var rpt2 = e.Item.FindControl("rpt2") as Repeater;
    rpt2.DataSource = //Child Level1 IEnumerable
}

protected void rpt2_ItemDataBound(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e)
{
    //bind rpt3 DataSource
}

Thank you for your help.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 23 '12 at 13:50

I'd say your implementation is perfectly feasible, as well as being efficient. It's the ".NET way" of approaching your scenario, using a Repeater for displaying a templated collection of information, whether this be a primary or sub-collection of data.

It's also easy to figure out what's going on for future developers, rather than over-complicating things. It's the way I'd go about your scenario anyway, unless there was any further business requirement that involved me in extending the Repeater control and using that. No need to over complicate scenarios where there's no need to.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:03

If the datasource is serializable then you should definitely consider using ListViews (MSDN) instead of Repeaters to display your data. Using ListViews, you can bind the datasource declaratively and not need to write any code-behind. You would be able to effectively eliminate all of the C# code you're using to bind each repeater.

Take a look at this StackOverflow answer for a detailed explanation as to how to do this.

The key is to set the DataSource in the markup within each nested ListView

Is Repeater efficient to bind serializable DataStructures

2 Answers2