Tip of the day, strongly typed repeater dataitems

Do you recognize this type of code?

            <asp:repeater ID="MyRepater" runat="server">

                <ItemTemplate>

                    <span class="some-class"><%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "APropertyOnMyObject") %></span>

                </ItemTemplate>

            </asp:Repeater>

Wouldn't it be sweet if we could write something like this instead?

            <asp:repeater ID="MyRepater" runat="server">

                <ItemTemplate>

                    <span class="some-class"><%# Container.GetItem<MyObject>().APropertyOnMyObject %></span>

                </ItemTemplate>

            </asp:Repeater>

Then we have the object strongly typed and will get compile errors if we've messed up.. I don't know about you, but I find it nicer to read without all that boiler-plate-code too

Have you guessed what's coming next..? =]

Well now you can! Just throw this baby in a suitable place and import the namespace in your page (or via web.config to get it in all pages..)

    public static class RepeaterItemExtensions

    {

        public static T GetItem<T>(this RepeaterItem repeaterItem)

        {

            return (T)repeaterItem.DataItem;

        }

    }