More efficient way of doing this? (ASP.NET textboxes)

I'm using a Wizard in my ASP.NET page, where in the first step the user chooses from a DropDownList, how many sets of controls will appear in the next wizard step (from 1-5).

For example, in the 2nd step of the wizard there are 3 textboxes. If they choose 2 on the previous screen, there will be 6 as there will be 2 sets of these.

I need to be able to store the contents of all these textboxes in a database (simple part I th开发者_运维知识库ink, there's 5 columns and all can be null.

The easy way of doing this I think is just creating all of the possible controls (5 sets), and hiding them based on what they choose in the previous screen. Is there a more efficient/easier way?

Thanks

It really depends on your definition of efficient/easier.
A more standard approach would be to use a repeater control to display the correct number of controls based on previous input. However if you have not used a repeater control before there will be a degree of learning involved in displaying your output and retrieving user input during the postback.

You can use the ASP.NET Wizard Control

If you absolutely know that 5 boxes is the max, and it is highly unlikely that there would ever be more than that, using Control.Visible on the server controls and their interface items such as label or what ever else, would work... but...

It's a bit brittle of a solution, though; Requiring you to make manual code changes in a few places if you decide to add more possible boxes.

A dynamic solution would let you set a maximum number of options in config, or just a single place in code. It would probably require you to change your database structure a little bit, but that would likely be better for normalization, anyway. It involves dynamically generating the items in the step of the wizard, too.

(More info on that option can be had if desired!)