Viewstate and controls in ASP.NET

Question

I posted a question a couple of days ago about viewstate and after running some tests I have come to some conclusions/results. Based on these results I have a few questions as t

Answer 1

I'm surprised but interested about your results. When I work with dynamic controls I always add them in Page_Init. Anything else doesn't work. But you are right - how do you do it if you are adding them in response to a button click.

The only way I have found is by examining Request.Form("__EVENTTARGET") collection at PageInit. This contains the control ID of the control that has triggered the postback so for instance a button click. It will of course be qualified by the naming containers it appears in. Once you have identified the 'event' by this method you can add the controls you want.

It is of course all a bit hacky but it's the only way I found of doing these things. It does work.

It's interesting that the ViewState is available on PreRender if you add the controls at Page_Load. But as the above link indicates it too late to help you then. The controls state is rehydrated during the load cycle. If it's not there then your control state or dynamic controls are just going to disappear.