Saving values of multiple TextFields in one SPField

Question

I've written a custom SPField which extends SPFieldText. This Field allows the admin to create a column with a cloze-text, where a user has to fill the missing words. The admin marks the positions for missing words with [], like

Hi [there], how [are] you.

In this example the words "there" and "are" are the correct answers for the missing words.

Then i created the FieldControl that parses the cloze-text and renders the textfields for every missing word.

ClozeFieldControl

private ArrayList answers = new ArrayList();

protected override void CreateChildControls()
{
    string pattern = Regex.Escape("[") + @"(.*?)\]";
    Match m = Regex.Match(clozeText, pattern);
    ....
    while (m.Success)
    {
        // display the text until the first missing word
        ....
        // then render a textfield
        answer = new TextField();
        answers.Add(answer);
        this.Controls.Add(answer);
        ....
    }
}

public override object Value
{
    get
    {
        EnsureChildControls();

        StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

        foreach (TextField answer in answers)
        {
            stringBuilder.Append(answer.Text.Trim());
            stringBuilder.Append(SPFieldMultiColumnValue.Delimiter);
        }

        return stringBuilder.ToString();  // when debugging, this value is correct: "there;#are;#"
    }

    set
    {
        EnsureChildControls();

        string[] userAnswers = Regex.Split(value.ToString(), SPFieldMultiColumnValue.Delimiter);

        int currentAnswerIndex = 0;
        foreach (TextField answer in answers)
        {
            answer.Text = userAnswers[currentAnswerIndex];
            currentAnswerIndex++;
        }
    }
}

When i'm adding a new list-item, only the value of the last textfield is saved in my list-item, though the value of the overridden Value-method (get) is correct when i'm debugging my solution.

The value in my list-item after saving the new list-item is

;#are;#

instead of

there;#are;#

Do you have any ideas, why Sharepoint or ASP is doing this?

Thanks in advance for your hints.

---

Update1:

While debugging I just found out, that in my custom SPField the methods GetFieldValue(string value) and GetValidatedString(object value) are called 3 times with my example cloze text (2 TextFields).

• At the first call, the value of both methods are correct: "there;#are;#"
• At the second call, the value has the value of the first Textfield: "there"
• And the last call, the parameter "value" has the value of the second Textfield: "are"

So there is a method which calls the save-function for each TextField, but I can't find the reason

Answer 1

I solved this problem by replacing the TextField with a TextBox ....