Better "left / substring" solution for <%# Container.DataItem %>
<p>This little asp.net code has some drawbacks. 
If the itemrow is empty, it will fail.
If the item tends to be shorter than 10 chars, you already know.</p>

<pre><code>&lt;asp:LinkButton ID="lbnHistory" CommandName="lbnHistory" 
  CommandArgument="'&lt;%# Container.DataItem %&gt;' 
  Text='&lt;%# ((string)Container.DataItem).ToString().Substring(5,10) %&gt;' 
  runat="server"&gt;
&lt;/asp:LinkButton&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>I'm also available to solve this with the repeatercommandevent i use for this task.
For simplification, I want it filled from a comma separated string.
The task itself is so simple and not worth creating and iterating a strong type.</p>

<p>What do you think?</p>
