Binding Objects to ASP.NET controls

In web forms, I often bind objects that represent database tables to various ASP.NET control and then when the data is saved, I extract all the user-inputed data from the controls and send that data to the object.  Using reflection I’ve been able to automate the process quite a bit. The FormBinding object iterates through all the properties of an object, looks for ASP.NET controls with where the ID is equal to the property name (such as Document.Title and <asp:TextBox ID=”title” />) and then attempts to insert the object.property into the control.value.

The code can be used like this:

void Page_Load() {
   if (!IsPostBack) {
      // Get an object from the datastore
      Document document = Document.GetDocument(1);
      // set the properties of the object to controls with the same ID
      FormBinding.BindObjectToControls(document,Page);
    }



}
void SaveButton(Object sender, EventArgs e) {
   Document document = Document.GetDocument(1);
   // change the values of the properties of the object to values of controls on the page
   FormBinding.BindControlsToObject(document,Page);
   Documents.Save(document);

}

The FormBinding methods work with ListControls and controls with the following Properties (Value, Text, SelectedDate, and Checked) which covers a wide variety of controls including FreeTextBox.

Here’s the code.