clsNestedMaster

clsNestedMaster is a stateless static helper that walks a chain of nested ASP.NET master pages, letting a control or page reach controls that live in an ancestor master rather than the immediate one, regardless of how deep the master-page nesting goes for a given consuming application.

Purpose

• Count how many levels of master-page nesting exist above a given page (MasterLevelCount).
• Locate a specific ancestor master by level, or the outermost master (FindMaster, Root).
• Recursively locate a control that lives inside a named ContentPlaceHolder anywhere in the master chain, falling back to a direct search on the root master when the recursive search finds nothing. (BR-CORE-035, BR-CORE-036, BR-CORE-037)

Context

• Namespace: SAIF.Presentation.Web.Core
• Assembly/package: SAIF.Presentation.Web.Core.Infragistics111 (merged into SAIF.Presentation.Web.Infragistics111.dll via SAIF.BOF.Presentation.Web.Infragistics111.nuspec)

Public members

Member	Signature	Purpose
MasterLevelCount(page)	Public Shared Function MasterLevelCount(page As Page) As Integer	Recurses from page.Master upward, counting levels until a master with no parent master is reached; returns the total nesting depth.
Root(page)	Public Shared Function Root(page As Page) As MasterPage	Returns the outermost master page in the chain (equivalent to FindMaster at the maximum level).
FindMaster(page, level)	Public Shared Function FindMaster(page As Page, Optional level As Integer = 1) As MasterPage	Recurses to the requested ancestor level (default 1, meaning one level up from the immediate master) and returns that MasterPage.
FindControl(page, controlID, contentPlaceHolderID)	Public Shared Function FindControl(page As Page, controlID As String, Optional contentPlaceHolderID As String = Nothing) As Control	Starts from the root master and recursively walks the control tree, returning the first control found inside a ContentPlaceHolder whose ID matches contentPlaceHolderID; falls back to a direct FindControl on the root master if the recursive search finds nothing.

Behavioral notes

• All members are Shared, so clsNestedMaster holds no instance state and is safe to call concurrently from multiple pages/requests.*
• FindControl's fallback to a direct root-master search means a control located at the top level (not nested inside the named content placeholder) can still be found even if the primary recursive search misses it.

Constraints and usage notes

• If both the recursive search and the root-master fallback fail, FindControl returns Nothing; callers must guard against a null control reference.**

Note: Statements marked with * were inferred from code structure, naming conventions, or contextual evidence where direct confirmation was not available in source artifacts. Statements marked with ** could not be confirmed; treat as unknown until verified.

Sources

• SAIF.Presentation.Web.Core.Infragistics111/clsNestedMaster.vb