DataBinding: 'System.Web.SiteMapNode' does not contain a property

Question

I want to add glyphicons to my custom built menu that I built using an <asp:Repeater> and a web.sitemap file as a data source.

Here is what I've tried:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
    <asp:Repeater runat="server" ID="rptMenu" DataSourceID="smdsMain">
        <ItemTemplate>
            <li>
                <a runat="server" href='<%# Eval("url") %>'>
                    <span class='glyphicon glyphicon-<%# Eval("glyphicon") %>'></span>
                        <%# Eval("title") %>
                </a>
            </li>
        </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:Repeater>
</ul>
<asp:SiteMapDataSource ID="smdsMain" runat="server" ShowStartingNode="false" SiteMapProvider="XmlSiteMapProvider" />

And here's an example of a node in my web.sitemap:

<siteMapNode url="~/Secure/Home/Default" title="Home" description="Home" glyphicon="home" />

Here is the error I get.

System.Web.HttpException: DataBinding: 'System.Web.SiteMapNode' does not contain a property with the name 'glyphicon'.

I everything else works fine without the glyphicon implementation.

I know it is possible to have a custom attribute in your sitemap nodes because someone implemented it in this Stack Overflow post.

So I must be doing something wrong in my customer implementation. What is the correct way to implement this?

Answer 1

After some research I found that you can access custom attributes in this way:

<%# Eval("[attributeName]") %>

Using that knowledge I have implemented into my code like this to get it working:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
    <asp:Repeater runat="server" ID="rptMenu" DataSourceID="smdsMain">
        <ItemTemplate>
            <li>
                <a runat="server" href='<%# Eval("url") %>'>
                    <span class='glyphicon glyphicon-<%# Eval("[glyphicon]") %>'></span>
                        <%# Eval("title") %>
                </a>
            </li>
        </ItemTemplate>
    </asp:Repeater>
</ul>
<asp:SiteMapDataSource ID="smdsMain" runat="server" ShowStartingNode="false" SiteMapProvider="XmlSiteMapProvider" />