recommend book for C# language?

Rachel · December 30th, 2008, 11:09 PM

Hi Imar:

I'm trying to understand what some of this language means such as :

<%= ... %>
<%$ .... %>
<%# ... %>

Is there a book for beginners that teaches all these symbols? I am typing all the exercises but I really don't know what I'm saying

and I think it would help me understand what I'm doing (& better what ASP.NET was doing) if I understood what these terms mean.

'<%# Eval("someword") %>' is used a lot in the book. All I know is that it means that its evaluating some text .

Now that I'm in chapter 13, I see
'<%# Bind("somethin") %>' a good bit. I know that this means to bind some data to the database but again, its sort of vague to me so I'm not sure I could actually use it if I weren't copying it out of some existing code.

Is there maybe a list like on page 149 where these symbols are defined?

Thanks,

Rachel

dparsons · December 31st, 2008, 01:35 AM

The easiest way to explain it is that they are shorthand expressions that reduce the amount of code you have to write.

To answer your question:

<%= %> is the equivalent of Response.Write();
<%$ %> is an expression. And it takes this form: <%$ expressionPrefix: expressionValue %> So, for example, you might do something like this on your web form in a content well (Assume that you have a key in your app settings named Foo):

<%$ AppSettings: Foo %>

This is no different than doing something like Response.Write(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Foo"])

Finally the <%# %> is a DataBinding expression and you can use it for either one way (read only) or two way (updateable) binding. You will typically only ever use this expression inside of controls that you can databind data sources to (DropDownList, Repeater, GridView, etc).

The two forms of the databinding expression are:
<%# Eval("ColumnName") %> (Used for one-way readonly binding)
<%# Bind("Column1") %> (Used for two-way updateable binding)

In the case of the latter it is typical that you would see its used in a manner such as:

aspnet Code:

<asp:TextBox ID="textboxColumn1" RunAt="Server"
          Text='<%# Bind("Column1") %>' />

so that any changes to the data could be persisted back to the database whereas the former of the two could simply exist in a div such as:

aspnet Code:

<div>
    <%# Eval("ColumnName") %>
</div>

Does that help clear things up?

In so far as a book that defines all of these symbols, the closest you will come is probably the MSDN because a book containing nothing but defintions of symbols and such would be cumbersome to read (when was the last time you heard of someone randomly reading a dictionary! ;]).

Google is a great resource for getting answers to things like this and I suggest using it.

hth.
-Doug

Imar · December 31st, 2008, 08:39 AM

Hi Doug,

Excellent explanation except for this:

Quote:

<%$ AppSettings: Foo %>
This is no different than doing something like Response.Write(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Foo"])

Although the net effect may appear to be the same, it really isn't. You can use this expression syntax at locations where Response.Write wouldn't make sense. For example, when used to feed a connection string in a SqlDataSource:

<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server"
ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:PlanetWroxConnectionString1 %>" >

When the page instance is created, this ConnectionString property is fed with the value from PlanetWroxConnectionString1. No Response involved, as nothing is sent to the browser.

I know you know this, but I wanted to set it straight just for the record... ;-)

Cheers and Happy new Year.

Imar

dparsons · December 31st, 2008, 10:17 AM

Thanks for clearing that up Imar. =]

Happy New Year to you too!

-Doug

Rachel · December 31st, 2008, 03:02 PM

Thanks. That cleared it up a little.

Rachel

dparsons · December 31st, 2008, 03:19 PM

You say that it cleared it up "a little" what questions do you still have or what isn't clear?

-Doug

Rachel · December 31st, 2008, 06:26 PM

It's not your explanation, its me.

I just don't know the language well enough for it to make sense really. I just see that you use this for that, etc. You say that:

" <%= %> is the equivalent of Response.Write(); "

But I don't know what "Response.Write(); is.

I'm a beginner at this. I only knew a very little Visual Basic which I learned enough to put together a windows program years ago. Much has changed since that!

Thanks,

Rachel

dparsons · December 31st, 2008, 06:49 PM

>< Sorry, my mistake. I will keep everything fairly basic for you:

Response.Write is used when you want to write SOMETHING out to your page. For example say you have a random page and you want to write out that servers current date for the user, you could put code similar to this in your Page Load event:

csharp Code:

Response.Write(DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString());

This will display the date on the page but, when using Response.Write, you have no control over where the Text is placed (it is typically at the very top of the page) which is less than desirable so you could get away with doing something like this:

html Code:

<div>
    <%=DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString()%>
</div>

This allows you to control where exactly this Date shows up since you can move the div practically anywhere. The one thing to keep in mind is that you can only use <%= %> on public members. So if you are working with some variable in your class file that you want to display to the user it needs to be defined as a class level variable that is defined with the public keyword otherwise you will get an error.

I am not sure how Imar does things in his book but I prefer using the Text property of Labels or literals to display information to the user as opposed to Response.Write or <%= %>.

Does this make more sense? Do you need further elaboration on the other two items?

hth
-Doug

Rachel · January 1st, 2009, 12:32 PM

Thanks a lot Doug. Now its even clearer. "Response.Write" sounds like a logical term for what it actually does - 'responds with writing something out' and that helps me understand it better.

Rachel

dparsons · January 1st, 2009, 12:44 PM

No problem! ^^

Happy New Year.

-Doug