ASP.NET Page Markup with Hyperlink

Question

I have a question regarding the page markup of a hyperlink. I have a form view on an aspx page which has a datatable bound to it in the code behind. I have some controls on the aspx page that get data bound to them in the markup. I have a hyperlink control that needs one field bound to it in the text property (which I figured out) and one field bound to it in the hyperlink propoerty (which I need help with). I got the page to somewhat accept the markup, but when the link it clicked the link is somehow broken.

Also, can I not use the navigate URL property to navigate to an outside URL? Say, WWW.ESPN.COM? I think that is the problem...

<asp:HyperLink runat="server" ID="lnkCustom" NavigateUrl='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "WebCustomHyper")%>' Target="_blank" CssClass="weblinks">
                                <%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "WebCustomHyperDesc")%></asp:HyperLink>

Any Ideas?

Answer 1

Also, can I not use the navigate URL property to navigate to an outside URL? Say, WWW.ESPN.COM? I think that is the problem...

Indeed that may very well be the problem. It depends on what the rendered client-side markup looks like. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the page is at http://www.example.com/page.aspx . Then if the link looks like this:

<a href="www.espn.com">click here</a>

Clicking it will try to take the user to:

http://www.example.com/www.espn.com

Which, of course, won't work. This is because the value www.espn.com alone doesn't tell the browser that it should be going to a different location. It's entirely possible that you have a file on the server called www.espn.com as far as the browser is concerned.

In order to direct it properly, you need to fully-qualify the URL. Which basically means you need to prepend the protocol prefix. Something more like this:

<a href="http://www.espn.com">click here</a>

This would fix the link and direct the user to the correct destination.