Textbox value null when trying to access it - asp.net

Question

namespace Dynamic_Controls.Dropdowndynamic
{
public partial class DropdowndynamicUserControl : UserControl
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (ControlCount != 0)
{
Recreatecontrols();
}
}
private void Recreatecontrols()
{
// createtextboxes(ControlCount);
createtextboxes(2);
}
protected void createtextboxes(int ControlCount)
{
DynPanel.Visible = true;
for (int i = 0; i <= ControlCount; i++)
{
TextBox tb = new TextBox();
tb.Width = 150;
tb.Height = 18;
tb.TextMode = TextBoxMode.SingleLine;
tb.ID = "TextBoxID" + this.DynPanel.Controls.Count;
tb.Text = "EnterTitle" + this.DynPanel.Controls.Count;
tb.Load+=new EventHandler(tb_Load);
tb.Visible = true;
tb.EnableViewState = true;
DynPanel.Controls.Add(tb);
DynPanel.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("<br/>"));
}
}
protected void DropDownList1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Int32 newControlCount = Int32.Parse(DropDownList1.SelectedValue);
//createtextboxes(newControlCount);
//ControlCount+=newControlCount;
createtextboxes(2);
}
protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
readtextboxes();
}
public void readtextboxes()
{
string x = string.Empty;
for (int a = 0; a < DynPanel.Controls.Count; a++)
{
foreach (Control ctrl in DynPanel.Controls)
{
if (ctrl is TextBox)
{
x = ((TextBox)ctrl).Text;
}
x+=x+("\n");
}
Result.Text = x;
}
}
private Int32 ControlCount
{
get
{
if (ViewState["ControlCount"] == null)
{
ViewState["ControlCount"] = 0;
}
return (Int32)ViewState["ControlCount"];
}
set
{
// ViewState["ControlCount"] = value;
ViewState["ControlCount"] = 2;
}
}
private void tb_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
LblInfo.Text = ((TextBox)sender).ID + "entered";
}
}
}

Answer 1

Are you adding these controls dynamically in Page_Load (by, I'm assuming, calling your AddRequiredControl() method)? If so, is it wrapped in a conditional which checks for IsPostBack? The likely culprit is that you're destructively re-populating the page with controls before you get to the button click handler, so all the controls would be present but empty (as in an initial load of the page).
Also, just a note, if you're storing each control in _txt in your loop, why not refer to that variable instead of re-casting on each line. The code in your loop seems to be doing a lot of work for little return.

Answer 2

You need to recreate any dynamically created controls on or before Page_Load or they won't contain postback data.
I'm not entirely clear what happens on DropdownList changed - are you trying to preserve anything that has been entered already based on the textboxes previously generated?
In any event (no pun intended) you need to recreate exactly the same textboxes in or before Page_Load that were there present on the postback, or there won't be data.
A typical way to do this is save something in ViewState that your code can use to figure out what to recreate - e.g. the previous value of the DropDownList. Override LoadViewState and call the creation code there in order to capture the needed value, create the textboxes, then in the DropDownList change event, remove any controls that may have been created in LoadViewState (after of course dealing with their data) and recreate them based on the new value.
edit - i can't figure out how your code works now, you have AddRequiredControl with parameters but you call it with none. Let's assume you have a function AddRequiredControls that creates all textboxes for a given DropDownList1 value, and has this signature:
void AddRequiredControls(int index)
Let's also assume you have a PlaceHolder called ControlsPlaceholder that will contain the textboxes. Here's some pseudocode:
override void LoadViewState(..) {
base.LoadViewState(..);
if (ViewState["oldDropDownIndex"]!=null) {
AddRequiredControls((int)ViewState["oldDropDownIndex"]);
}
}
override OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
// process data from textboxes
}
void DropDownList1_SelectedIndexChanged(..) {
ControlsPlaceholder.Controls.Clear();
AddRequiredControls(DropDownList1.SelectedIndex);
ViewState["oldDropDownIndex"]=DropDownList1.SelectedIndex;
}