Why can I not combine if and eval? And whats the best alternative?

Question

In a Asp Net data bound control one can use the nice Eval() syntax:

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

but it's not possible to combine with a conditional statement is it?:

<% if (Eval("MyProp")!="") { %>
<div><%# Eval("MyProp") %></div>
<%} %>

Would be nice to have that option.

So - my option is to put part of the markup in CodeBehind. I really liked to keep it out of there. Any other possibilities?

Answer 1

It's because Eval("MyProp") returns object and you cannot compare object to string. You might need to cast it to string (if MyProp is of type string of course).

Answer 2

<% if ((string)Eval("MyProp") != "")
 { %>
<div>
    <%# Eval("MyProp") %></div>
<%} %>

or

<%# (string)Eval("MyProp") != "" ? string.Format("<div>{0}</div>", Eval("MyProp")) : "" %>