ASP.NET 2.0 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 2. Displaying and Editing Data for the Web

In This Chapter

✓	Binding: Displaying data with server-side controls
✓	Creating and using data sources
✓	Repeating through a result set
✓	Creating a data-entry page

When you’re writing the code that displays data on a Web page, it’s worth your time to think carefully through the order in which everything takes place: when the form loads, when the data is read, when the server controls write their text — and when, in the midst of all this, you want to write your data. Further, there’s the practical matter of formatting the data: Do you write out each data item manually — specifying Cascading Style Sheet information and using HTML tags as well — or do you rely on a server control that writes CSS styles for you? Well, that depends. In this chapter I present different ways to get your data out of the database and onto the Web page.

All code listings used in this book are available for download at www.dummies.com/go/aspnetaiofd.

Writing Data to a Page with a Label

A Label server control lets you write dynamic text to a page. But you can also use it to write out data from a database. But why is this any better than just using Response.Write? It’s neither better nor worse, just an alternate way of writing your data with its own pros and cons, which I tell you about here.

Here’s a sample Page_Load event that stores a data item in a Label’s Text property. ...