Does datalist tag need to be bind on serverside when not using database

Question

I have a few lines of code in which no server connection and databse fetching included. Problem is picture is not being displayed when I want to show that in datalist.

<asp:DataList ID="dlpic" runat="server" RepeatDirection="Horizontal" RepeatColumns = "4">
  <ItemTemplate>
    <div class="item" id="construction">
      <div class="border">
        <a id="imageLink" href="~/images/Gallery/Gallery_Halmar001.jpg" class="zoom prettyPhoto" runat="server" >
          <img src="images/Gallery/Gallery_Halmar001.jpg" class="scale-with-grid" />
        </a> 
      </div>
      <h5><a href="#"></a></h5>
      <p></p>
      <div class="shadow"></div>
    </div>
  </ItemTemplate>
</asp:DataList>

Do I still need to bind datalist?

Answer 1

Yes you need to bind it. A datalist will not render any items if it is unbound or bound to a List with 0 items. But if you're not binding to anything, why use the datalist at all? Just display the markup directly.