Hi

I am using itemtemplate of a gridview to display a value that i retrieve from database but the problem is that the text within that field is too long therefore i only want to take the first 40 character out of it. I done some searching and realize that have to do something with the Left() function but absolutely no idea how to get it done.

I am using vb.net and working in aspx....



Thanks in advance

What is the contents of your item template?

-Peter
peterlanoie.blog

here is my code below:

-------------------------

   <ItemTemplate>
                                                 <img width=80 height="80" align="left" src='<%# Eval ( "SImageURL")%> '/>

                                                 <table>
                                                    <tr>
                                                      <td>
                                                         Â»
                                                         <a href='http://www.abc.com/<%# Replace(Eval("CategoryName")," ","-") %>/<%# Replace(Replace(Eval("Heading"),"'","")," ","-")%>.news/<%# Eval("ArticleID") %>'><%# eval("Heading") %></a>&nbsp;<br /><br />
                                                       </td>
                                                    </tr>
                                                    <tr>
                                                       <td>
                                                       <a href='http://www.abc.com/<%# Replace(Eval("CategoryName")," ","-") %>/<%# Replace(Replace(Eval("Heading"),"'","")," ","-")%>.news/<%# Eval("ArticleID") %>' class="greytext">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;READ MORE </a>
                                                        </td>
                                                     </tr>
                                                     <tr>
                                                        <td>&nbsp;&nbsp; Date : <%#Eval("ArticleDate")%> </td>

                                                     <%-- <td><%#Eval("ArticleDate")%></td>--%>
                                                       <%--<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;Dated: <%# Eval("ArticleDate") %></td>--%>
                                                    </tr>
                                                  </table>

                                                </ItemTemplate>

hi,

you have to do just like this :

<%# Left(Eval("fieldname"),40)%>

this will show only first 40 character of that field.

hope this will help you.

Many thanks yes its working
Just a little thing more

How can i add "...more" at the end, i tried different ways but keep getting different errors...

Many Thanks

I don't know what value you want to truncate but you have lots of Replace calls in there so you should be able to easily add a string class method call to get just the beginning of the value. If you need to do some complex logic you can also create a protected method in your code-behind and call that method from the binding expression. Then the method can process the string as you need.

-Peter
peterlanoie.blog

hi,

if you want to add "..more" at the end of string then you need to do concatenate with string like this

 <%#Left(Eval("fieldname"), 40) & "...more"%>

thats it.