Using the Controls Collection in an ASP.NET Web Page
The Control class and its derived classes (including the Page class) expose a Controls property that returns a ControlCollection instance. This hierarchy allows you to walk the control tree programmatically to search for specific controls on a page, as well as to check the type of controls within the collection in order to access their properties. The following code example shows how to walk through the page's control hierarchy to find instances of the <asp:TextBox> control (of which there is only one).
.gif "Security note") Security Note |
|---|
This example has a text box that accepts user input, which is a potential security threat. By default, ASP.NET Web pages validate that user input does not include script or HTML elements. For more information, see Script Exploits Overview. |
<%@ Page Language="VB" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head id="head1" runat="server">
<title>Using the Controls Collection in a Web Form</title>
<script language="vb" runat="server">
Private Sub ChangeBtn_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
Dim c As Control
Dim c2 As Control
For Each c In Page.Controls
If c.Controls.Count > 0 Then
For Each c2 In c.Controls
If c2.GetType.ToString = "System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox" Then
MySpan.InnerHtml = CType(c2, TextBox).Text
CType(c2, TextBox).Text = ""
End If
Next
End If
Next
End Sub
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<table width="80%"
border="1"
cellpadding="1"
cellspacing="1">
<tr>
<td align="center" style="width:50%;">
<asp:TextBox id="MyTextBox"
text="Type something here"
runat="server"/>
</td>
<td align="center" style="width:50%;">
<span id="myspan" runat="server"> </span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align="center">
<input id="changebtn"
type="submit"
onserverclick="changebtn_click"
value="move your text"
runat="server" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
</html>
<%@ Page Language="C#" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head id="head1" runat="server">
<title>Using the Controls Collection in a Web Form</title>
<script language="c#" runat="server">
private void ChangeBtn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
foreach(Control c in Page.Controls)
{
if (c.Controls.Count > 0)
{
foreach(Control c2 in c.Controls)
{
if (c2.GetType().ToString() == "System.Web.UI.WebControls.TextBox")
{
myspan.InnerHtml = ((TextBox)c2).Text;
((TextBox)c2).Text = "";
}
}
}
}
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<table width="80%"
border="1"
cellpadding="1"
cellspacing="1">
<tr>
<td align="center" style="width:50%;">
<asp:TextBox id="MyTextBox"
text="Type something here"
runat="server"/>
</td>
<td align="center" style="width:50%;">
<span id="myspan" runat="server"> </span>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2" align="center">
<input id="changebtn"
type="submit"
onserverclick="ChangeBtn_Click"
value="move your text"
runat="server" />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
</html>