nested dictionary to nested repeater asp.net c#

Question

Hi,

I'm making an asp.page that will display hierarchical information about company assets.

To grab the data I used a lambda expression:

            FASAssetInfoDataContext fasInfo = new FASAssetInfoDataContext();
        var data = from g in fasInfo.Asset_Informations
                          where g.Department.Substring(0, 3) == p
                          select g;
        Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, List<info>>> branch = data.GroupBy(e => e.Location)
            .ToDictionary(g => g.Key,
            g => g.GroupBy(gl => gl.G_L_Asset_Acct_No)
                .ToDictionary(gl => gl.Key,
                gl => gl.Select(s => new info
                {
                    acqDate = s.Acquisition_Date,
                    asstNo = s.Co_Asset_Number,
                    classInfo = s.Class,
                    description = s.Description,
                    mfgSerialNo = s.Mfg_Serial_No,
                    deprThisRun = s.Depr_This_Run__Int_,
                    AcqValue = s.Acquisition_Value__Int_,
                    currentAccDepr = s.Current_Accum_Depr__Int_,
                    estLife = s.Est_Life__YYMM___Int_,
                    inServiceDate = s.Placed_In_Service_Date__Int_,
                    netBookValue = s.Current_Net_Book_Value__Int_,
                    oldAcqValue = s.Acquisition_Value__Tax_
                }).ToList()));

So I now have a nested set of dictionaries with a list of information at the end. My question is how do I best display this information on the page itself? I can get the first level but have been struggling to get the nested repeater to function properly. If there is a better control to use I'm all ears :)

Thanks,

Marco

Answer 1

asp:TreeView? Not sure how it will handle the nested data set but it's designed to display it.

Answer 2

If you do indeed need to use nested repeaters, its possible, but getting it working isn't particularly obvious. The following would work (simplified for brevity):

<asp:Repeater id="level1" OnItemDataBound="level1_ItemDataBound" ...>
  <ItemTemplate>
    <asp:Repeater id="level2" OnItemDataBound="level2_ItemDataBound" ...>
      <ItemTemplate>
        <asp:Repeater id="level3" OnItemDataBound="level3_ItemDataBound" ...>
        </asp:Repeater>
      </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:Repeater>
  </ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>

Code behind:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, List<info>>> branch = ...;
    level1.DataSource = branch;
    level1.DataBind();
}

protected void level1_ItemDataBound(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e)
{
    Dictionary<string, List<info>> data = (Dictionary<string, List<info>>)e.Item.DataItem;
    Repeater level2 = e.Item.FindControl("level2") as Repeater;
    level2.DataSource = data;
    level2.DataBind();
}

protected void level2_ItemDataBound(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e)
{
    List<info> data = (List<info>)e.Item.DataItem;
    Repeater level3 = e.Item.FindControl("level3") as Repeater;
    level3.DataSource = data;
    level3.DataBind();
}

protected void level3_ItemDataBound(object sender, RepeaterItemEventArgs e)
{
   // Bind properties from info elements in List<info> here
}

Answer 3

There's an nicer way of doing this without any ItemDataBound events. For simplicity let's assume two level of repeaters.

<asp:Repeater id="level1" >
   <ItemTemplate>
     <asp:Repeater id="level2" 
          DataSource='<%# ((System.Collections.Generic.KeyValuePair<string,System.Collections.Generic.List<string>>)Container.DataItem).Value %>' >
      <ItemTemplate>
           <%# Container.DataItem %>
       </ItemTemplate>
      </asp:Repeater>
   </ItemTemplate>
 </asp:Repeater>

I usually prefer this way, since for some reason I hate ItemDataBound events :)