format phone in a repeater/datalist

[TJ]

The phone number in my dataset is formatted 5558675309.
I present it in the aspx page as <%#
DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem,"phone_number") %>
How can I format this to show it like 555-867-5309?
I could do this in code behind no prob,but I'm pretty rough when it comes to
string formatting in the aspx page.

[ScottStoecker]

Assuming you can count on the phone number being ten digits long, you
could do something like this:

'Inside the aspx page
<asp:TextBox id=txtPhone
Text='ReturnPhoneNumber(Container.DataItem("phone_ number")'
runat=server />

'Inside the code behind file
Protected Function ReturnPhone (Phone As String) As String
Return Phone.Substring(0, 3) & "-" & Phone.Substring(3, 3) & "-" &
Phone.Substring(6)
End Function

Hopefully there are no typos in that.

Scott

[ScottStoecker]

Oops, there was:

<asp:TextBox id=txtPhone
Text='ReturnPhoneNumber(Container.DataItem("phone_ number"))'
runat=server />

[TJ]

Thanks for the very fast response.

Hmm...the textbox displays not the formatted return string from the
function, but rather the exact text we put into the aspx page calling it,
"'ReturnPhoneNumber(Container.DataItem("phone_numb er"))". Hmmm.

This technique seems valid, thx for pointing me in the right direction. Hope
it doesn't matter that the code is actually in a nested repeater...but w/o
trying to format from a code behind function shows it just fine (just ugly
and unformatted).

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Oops, there was:

<asp:TextBox id=txtPhone
Text='ReturnPhoneNumber(Container.DataItem("phone_ number"))'
runat=server />

[ScottStoecker]

Ah, because the delimiters were not put around the call to
ReturnPhoneNumber function:

<asp:TextBox id=txtPhone
Text='<%# ReturnPhoneNumber(Container.DataItem("phone_number ")) %>'
runat=server />