How to create thead and tbody in ASP.NET Table ?

Question

How to create thead and tbody in ASP.NET Table? I need those tags because of jquery and asp.net gives me only tr, th and td.

Coupling

Answer 1

asp:Table does not support these elements.

Update: As jameh's answer reveals, the sentence above is completely wrong: the TableSection property allows to control whether a given row goes into the table's header, body or footer.

To elaborate on his answer, it seems you can even achieve this declaratively by setting the TableSection property in your markup, without code behind:

<asp:Table id="yourId" runat="server">
    <asp:TableHeaderRow TableSection="TableHeader">
        <!-- ... -->
    </asp:TableHeaderRow>
    <asp:TableRow>
        <!-- 'TableSection' defaults to 'TableRowSection.TableBody'. -->
        <!-- ... -->
    </asp:TableRow>
    <asp:TableRow TableSection="TableFooter">
        <!-- ... -->
    </asp:TableRow>
</asp:Table>

---

Original, now moot answer follows:

You might want to try the HtmlTable class instead:

<table id="yourId" runat="server">
    <thead>
        .
        .
        .
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        .
        .
        .
    </tbody>
</table>

Maddie

What good is then this Asp:Table ? Can I create HtmlTable programaticly with C# code ? – Coupling

Yes, you can, even if the syntax is probably less clear. – Ryun

asp:Table is consistent with other web server controls. It'normally easier to develop with than HtmlTable. See developerfusion.com/article/4410/in-depth-aspnet-using-adonet/3. – Ryun

Read jameh's answer. This is possible to do with asp:Table – Blythe

@InvisibleBacon, done, and answer corrected accordingly. Thanks for the heads-up :) – Ryun

Answer 2

Frédéric's answer is not accurate. asp:Table DOES in fact support <tbody> and <thead> tags, but in a less obvious fashion than HtmlTable.

UseAccessibleHeader is true by default for tables, which means your header rows will be rendered properly with <th> instead of <td>, but to get the <tbody> and <thead> tags, you've just got to set some voodoo at Page_Load and when you're creating/inserting your rows in the codebehind.

Here's my example asp:Table markup:

<asp:Table runat="server" ID="tblGeneral">
    <asp:TableHeaderRow ID="TableHeaderRow1" runat="server">
        <asp:TableHeaderCell ID="TableHeaderCell1" runat="server">Column 1</asp:TableHeaderCell>
        <asp:TableHeaderCell ID="TableHeaderCell2" runat="server">Column 2</asp:TableHeaderCell>
        <asp:TableHeaderCell ID="TableHeaderCell3" runat="server">Column 3</asp:TableHeaderCell>
        <asp:TableHeaderCell ID="TableHeaderCell4" runat="server">Column 4</asp:TableHeaderCell>
        <asp:TableHeaderCell ID="TableHeaderCell5" runat="server">Column 5</asp:TableHeaderCell>
    </asp:TableHeaderRow>
</asp:Table>

At Page_Load, we specify that our TableHeaderRow1 should be a TableHeader:

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
    TableHeaderRow1.TableSection = TableRowSection.TableHeader      
End Sub

And finally, in your function that inserts rows into said table, you just have to specify that the TableRowSection of each row you add is a TableBody:

Dim row As TableRow
Dim dvRow As Data.DataRowView

For Each dvRow In dv
    row = New TableRow
    row.TableSection = TableRowSection.TableBody 'THIS is the important bit
    cell = New TableCell
    Col1Stuff = New Label
    Col1Stuff.Text = "Blah"
    cell.Controls.Add(Col1Stuff)
    row.Cells.Add(cell)

    ...

tblGeneral.Rows.Add(row)
Next

You can do more reading on the TableRowSection property; looks like you can also accomplish this with your asp:Table template.

Introduction

You're right, I stand corrected. As I could not delete my answer in favour of yours (accepted answers cannot be deleted), I fixed it with the information you provided. Hope you don't mind :) – Ryun

No problem, always happy to share insight into the cryptic ASP.NET world. ;-) – Introduction

Is it possible to create multiple tbodies dynamically? – Rimbaud