It is not an ASP.Net dependency. The DIVs do have meaning -- they define boundaries of a block of markup, and the block of markup is the code generated by the ASP.Net control. They have purpose, too -- you can easily use DIVs to better facilitate using JavaScript and CSS.
Take two examples -- one where the <table /> created by a GridView has no <div /> wrapper, and one that does not. Now let's say you want to style only those tables which are created by an ASP.Net GridView. Without the wrapper, you would define a CSS class, and assign it to each GridView using the CssClass property. With the wrapper, you can define it all in CSS, saving a step and (arguably) avoiding the potential mistake of forgetting to assign the CssClass property.
In other words, wrappers make you do this:
div.AspNet-GridView table {
...
}
... as opposed to this:
table.myTableClass {
...
}
Maybe it's a matter of personal preference, but the wrapper lets you do both, and is far from being "wrong" from an XHTML perspective.
Hope this helps!
- brian
-
blog: www.sidesofmarch.com