The table web control in ASP.NET

 
This article has been excerpted from book "A Programmer's Guide to ADO.NET in C#".

As I approach the end if this article, I'd like to take a look at one other widely used Web control: the table control. A table Web control creates an HTML table in simple HTML with the help of the <tr> and <td> tags.

You can use the <table>,<tr>, and <td> tags to create a table and its rows in HTML. For example, the HTML code in Listing 7-25 creates a table with two rows and three columns with their values.

Listing 7-25. HTML code for a Table control

       <table border="1" width="39%">
            <tr>
                <td width="33%">
                    Row1,Col1
                </td>
                <td width="33%">
                    Row1,Col2
                </td>
                <td width="34%">
                    Row1,Col3
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td width="33%">
                    Row2,Col1
                </td>
                <td width="33%">
                    Row2,Col2
                </td>
                <td width="34%">
                    Row2,Col3
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>

In the .NET Framework the Table class enables you to build an HTML table.

The System.Web.UI.Controls namespace defines the Table class, along with the other Web controls. You can create tables in .NET using a Table control and its helper controls TableRow and TableCell. As with all Web controls, you can create a Table control at run-time as well as at design-time using the VS .NET IDE. Table 7-9 describes the Table control and its helper controls.

Table 7-9 ASP.NET table and its Helper Control Classes

CONTROL	CODE	DESCRIPTION
Table	<asp:Table>	The System.Web.UI.Table class encapsulates an HTML table. An HTML table control, used to creates a table with the help of TableRow and TableCell.
TableRow	<asp:TableRow>	The System.Web.UI.TableRow class encapsulates a row within a table, which later can be used to get or set row's cells values using TableCell.
TableCell	<asp:TableCell>	The System.Web.UI.TableCell class encapsulates a cell within a table.
TableRowCollection	<asp:TableRowCollection>	The System.Web.UI.TableCell class encapsulates a TableRowCollection and is used to manage a collection of table a collection or removing a row from it.
TableCellCollection	<asp:TableCellCollection>	Manages a collection of table cells such as adding a cell to a row or removing a cell from it.
TableHeaderCollection	<asp:TableHeaderCell>	Encapsulate a table header cell.

Creating a table at design-time

You can create a table at design as well as run-time. To add a table control to your form at design-time, just drag and drop a table control from the Web Control toolbox to a Web form. Then use the Properties windows to add the rows and cells to the table.

The Rows property of a Table control adds rows to a table (see Figure 7-55).



Figure 7-55. Table control properties

In this example, I added three rows to the table by using the Add button of the TableRow Collectionn Editor. (Clicking on the Collection of rows properties launches the TableRow Collection Editor; See Figure 7-56).



Figure 7-56. Adding rows with the TableRow Collection Editor

Now simply add cells to the rows by using the Cells property of a row. Use the Text property of a cell to add a value to the cell, and use the Add and Remove buttons of the TableCell Collection Editor to add and remove cells from a row. (You can launch the TableCell Collection Editor by clicking on the Collection of Cells property; see Figure 7-57)



Figure 7-57. TableCell Collection Editor

After taking this action, the IDE writes the ASP code for you, which looks like Listing 7-26.

Listing 7-26. ASP.NET code for a table control

        <asp:Table ID="Table1" runat="server" Height="123px" Width="567px">
            <asp:TableRow runat="server">
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
            </asp:TableRow>
            <asp:TableRow runat="server">
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
            </asp:TableRow>
            <asp:TableRow runat="server">
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
                <asp:TableCell runat="server"></asp:TableCell>
            </asp:TableRow>
        </asp:Table>

Conclusion

Hope this article would have helped you in understanding the table web control in ASP.NET. See other articles on the website also for further reference.

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