What is 'Runat" and what does it do?

[mscurto]

I wrote an ASP Web App in Visual Studio and I want the user entered
data to go to a specific server. This runat looks like it is trying to
post to the asp page.

If I remove all instances of it, it looks like it works but it screws
up my page.

What does this command do and can I work around this?

 

[Rick]

Runat sets where the code is to be processed for the item. The only
available option is server. This allows you to process code in the
code-behind for that item.

for instance, <table id="myTable" runat="server">... Will allow you to
access the table named myTable from your code behind. Note: for this to
work properly you may need to manually add the member to your code
behind as well..

protected System.Web.UI.HtmlControls.HtmlTable myTable;

now you'll have access to all the members of the HtmlTable myTable.

it's the same for all the drag and drop server controls as well.

-Rick

 

[Rick]

PS. To send the data to a specific server (database server) that is set
up by the data access logic components and the connection string
(SqlDataAdapter, SqlCommand, etc).

-Rick

 

[Karl Seguin [MVP]]

More technically, runat="server" is something that ASP.NET compiler parses
for in order to turn an html tag into a server side control.

Karl

 

[jhcorey]

I wonder why this isn't simply the default action for asp.net controls.

 

[Will Asrari]

Using the runat and id attributes of a control you can access them
programmatically via code-behind. You can take a native HTML element
such as a table add unique id's to the table rows <TR> with the
runat="server" attribute and show/hide certain rows based on user input.