Matthew,
So - if I have a string of HTML text with a embedded asp.net server control
and I use the response.write function will asp.net recognize that there is a
control with in the document and load it accordingly??
No, the template parser is long done after you get to write to the HTTP
output stream.
If this don't work that only way that I can image doing it would be to
implement my own method of tags - search from them at run-time and extract
the code between them and use the Eval function to evaluate the code. Does
not seem like a good solution - but I think it would work.
You can embed type names or something like that, and then use some sort of
class factory implementation to instantiate the "controls" that need to
render themselves. Pass the HttpContext reference to them or some such so
they can play. Remember that a "control" in ASP.NET is something that just
renders some HTML. They're nothing special and they don't have to be loaded
from disk or have an ASCX extension (although that has its advantages).
Still, avoid that sort of thing as much as you can.
Part of my aim is to limit the dependence of the need to store data - once
the invoice or file is produced ideally I need future requests to only look
at this one file for it to display correctly - therefore the reasoning on
imbedding the data within the file - but that does not mean that the code
could be pulled out of the file and placed elsewhere. Having as few
dependencies as possible on what is required to display the page was part of
the original design and one that ensures that future system changes will not
inadvertently make viewing older invoices fail. Something that has worked
well over the past 5 years.
Ideally you never store data with presentation metadata (your markup), but I
will recognize that in some cases it makes sense. But storing the data with
the markup is not a good idea just because you think the application will
change someday - you design applications to be resilient and adaptable to
most foreseeable changes.
