ASP.NET control in GridView not found to exist in code behind

Question

I have a DropDownList that I would like to populate with column values from a DataBase. However, when I try to bind the DropDownList in code behind, the IDE keeps telling me:

Answer 1

your dropdown is in gridview so you can try with this code

protected void Gridview1_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
{
    var ddl = (DropDownList)e.Row.FindControl("EqpCatDDL'");
    SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("SELECT EqpCateID, EqpCat FROM EqpCategory", connection);

    SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter(cmd);
    DataSet ds = new DataSet();
    da.Fill(ds);

    EqpCatDDL.DataSource = ds;
    EqpCatDDL.DataValueField = "EqpCateID";
    EqpCatDDL.DataTextField = "EqpCat";
    EqpCatDDL.DataBind();

}
}