Event is an action or occurrence like mouse click, key press,
mouse movements, or any system generated notification. The processes
communicate through events. For example, Interrupts are system generated
events. When events occur the application should be able to respond to it.
In ASP.Net an event is raised on the client, and handled in the
server. For example, a user clicks a button displayed in the browser. A Click
event is raised. The browser handles this client-side event by posting it to
the server.
The server has a subroutine describing what to do when the event
is raised; it is called the event-handler. Therefore, when the event message is
transmitted to the server, it checks whether the Click event has an associated
event handler, and if it has, the event handler is executed.
Event Arguments:
ASP.Net event handlers generally take two parameters and return
void. The first parameter represents the object raising the event and the
second parameter is called the event argument.
The general syntax of an event is:
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private void EventName (object sender,
EventArgs e);
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Application and Session
Events:
The most important application events are:
- Application_Start . it is raised
when the application/website is started
- Application_End . it is raised
when the application/website is stopped
Similarly, the most used Session events are:
- Session_Start . it is raised
when a user first requests a page from the application
- Session_End . it is raised
when the session ends
Page and Control Events:
Common page and control events are:
- DataBinding . raised when a
control bind to a data source
- Disposed . when the page
or the control is released
- Error . it is an page
event, occurs when an unhandled exception is thrown
- Init . raised when
the page or the control is initialized
- Load . raised when
the page or a control is loaded
- PreRender . raised when
the page or the control is to be rendered
- Unload . raised when
the page or control is unloaded from memory
Event Handling Using
Controls:
All ASP.Net controls are implemented as classes, and they have
events which are fired when user performs certain action on them. For example,
when a user clicks a button the 'Click' event is generated. For handling these
events there are in-built attributes and event handlers. To respond to an event,
the event handler is coded.
By default Visual Studio creates an event handler by including a
Handles clause on the Sub procedure. This clause names the control and event
that the procedure handles.
The asp tag for a button control:
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<asp:Button ID="btnCancel"
runat="server" Text="Cancel" />
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The event handler for the Click event:
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Protected Sub btnCancel_Click(ByVal sender As
Object,
ByVal e As
System.EventArgs)
Handles
btnCancel.Click
End Sub
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An event can also be coded without a Handles clause. Then the
handler must be named according to the appropriate event attribute of the
control.
The asp tag for a button control:
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<asp:Button ID="btnCancel"
runat="server" Text="Cancel"
Onclick="btnCancel_Click" />
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The event handler for the Click event:
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Protected Sub btnCancel_Click(ByVal sender As
Object,
ByVal e As
System.EventArgs)
End Sub
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The common control events are:
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Event
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Attribute
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Controls
|
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Click
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OnClick
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Button, image button, link button, image map
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Command
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OnCommand
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Button, image button, link button
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TextChanged
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OnTextChanged
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Text box
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SelectedIndexChanged
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OnSelectedIndexChanged
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Drop-down list, list box, radio button list, check box list.
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CheckedChanged
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OnCheckedChanged
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Check box, radio button
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Some events cause the form to be posted back to the server
immediately, these are called the postback events. For example, the click
events like, Button.Click. Some events are not posted back to the server
immediately, these are called non-postback events.
For example, the change events or selection events, such as,
TextBox.TextChanged or CheckBox.CheckedChanged. The nonpostback events could be
made to post back immediately by setting their AutoPostBack property to true.
Default Events:
The default event for the Page object is the Load event. Similarly
every control has a default event. For example, default event for the button
control is the Click event.
The default event handler could be created in Visual Studio, just
by double clicking the control in design view. The following table shows some
of the default events for common controls:
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Control
|
Default Event
|
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AdRotator
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AdCreated
|
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BulletedList
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Click
|
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Button
|
Click
|
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Calender
|
SelectionChanged
|
|
CheckBox
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CheckedChanged
|
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CheckBoxList
|
SelectedIndexChanged
|
|
DataGrid
|
SelectedIndexChanged
|
|
DataList
|
SelectedIndexChanged
|
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DropDownList
|
SelectedIndexChanged
|
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HyperLink
|
Click
|
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ImageButton
|
Click
|
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ImageMap
|
Click
|
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LinkButton
|
Click
|
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ListBox
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SelectedIndexChanged
|
|
Menu
|
MenuItemClick
|
|
RadioButton
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CheckedChanged
|
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RadioButtonList
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SelectedIndexChanged
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Example:
This example has a simple page with a label control and a button
control on it. As the page events like, Page_Load, Page_Init, Page_PreRender
etc. takes place, it sends a message, which is displayed by the label control.
When the button is clicked, the Button_Click event is raised and that also
sends a message to be displayed on the label.
Create a new website and drag a label control and a button control
on it from the control tool box. Using the properties window, set the IDs of
the controls as .lblmessage. and .btnclick. respectively. Set the Text property
of the Button control as 'Click'.
The markup file (.aspx):
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<%@ Page Language="C#"
AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs"
Inherits="eventdemo._Default" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD
XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<div>
<asp:Label ID="lblmessage" runat="server" >
</asp:Label>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<asp:Button ID="btnclick" runat="server"
Text="Click"
onclick="btnclick_Click" />
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
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Double click on the design view to move to the code behind file.
The Page_Load event is automatically created without any code in it. Write down
the following self-explanatory code lines:
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using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Xml.Linq;
namespace eventdemo
{
public partial class _Default :
System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
lblmessage.Text += "Page load event handled. <br />";
if
(Page.IsPostBack)
{
lblmessage.Text += "Page post back event
handled.<br/>";
}
}
protected void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
lblmessage.Text += "Page initialization event
handled.<br/>";
}
protected void Page_PreRender(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
lblmessage.Text += "Page prerender event handled.
<br/>";
}
protected void btnclick_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
lblmessage.Text += "Button click event handled.
<br/>";
}
}
}
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Run the page. The label shows page load, page initialization and
the page pre-render events. Click the button to see effect:
