ASP.Net: Literal vs Label

Question

Apologies for the incredible newbish question, but I just wanted to hear some authorities on when and where you should use a LITERAL control over a LABEL.

As I understand it, the difference is this: A LABEL can be styled via the <SPAN> tags that are added.

I personally find the addition of <SPAN> tags in my HTML to be very annoying and never actually apply styles through ASP, and so LITERALs seem to be what should be used most of the time... but I'm concerned there's other considerations or benefits to using a LABEL over it that I'm unaware of.

Is it 100% completely fine to replace any LABELs with LITERALs, provided we're not applying styles to them? Are there NO other considerations?

Thanks for any advice.

Answer 1

Yep, the main difference is that Literal controls just render out text, but Label controls surround it with <span> tags.

So, labels can be styled easier, but if you're just inserting text, literals are the way to go. Literal controls also have a handy property Mode which governs how the text is rendered. You can have it HTML-encoded, or rendered without any changes, or have any "unsupported markup-language elements" removed.

If you're not applying any styles (e.g. by using Label's CssClass property), it will be fine to replace Label controls with Literal controls.

Answer 2

When you have code similar to

<asp:Label EnableViewState="false" ID="Label8" runat="server" 
        AssociatedControlID="txtEmail">Email Address:</asp:Label>

<asp:TextBox ID="txtEmail" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>

It is optimal to use a label element because it will correctly turn it into a html label element with the correct for attribute targeting your text box that if a user clicks on the label it automatically sets their cursor inside the text field.

Otherwise use the literal unless the text being wrapped in a span will be beneficial for css styling.