12.1. Data Controls
To enable you to work efficiently with the data in your system, ASP.NET offers two sets of data-aware controls: the data-bound controls and the data source controls.
The first group contains controls that you use to display and edit data, like the GridView, Repeater, and the new ListView control. The data source controls are used to retrieve data from a data source, like a database or an XML file, and then offer this data to the data-bound controls. Figure 12-1 shows you the complete list of available data controls in the Data category of the Toolbox.
Figure 12-1. Figure 12-1
The following two sections provide a quick overview of all the controls in the data category. In the remainder of this chapter you get a much more detailed look at some of these controls and how to use them.
12.1.1. Data-Bound Controls
The first seven controls in the Toolbox depicted in Figure 12-1 are the so-called data-bound controls. You use them to display and edit data on your web pages. The GridView, DataList, ListView, and Repeater are all able to display multiple records at the same time, whereas the DetailsView and the FormView are designed to show a single record at a time. The DataPager is used to provide paging capabilities to the ListView controls and is, just like the ListView, new in ASP.NET 3.5.
12.1.1.1. List Controls
Since ASP.NET offers multiple controls to display ...