1. in the button fleid, you must to set the CausesValidation as "true", or the javascript will block the button event which should be triggered in the sever side, below is a example
<asp:ButtonField ButtonType="Button" Text="copy" CommandName="a" CausesValidation="true"/>
2. in the databound function, you should bound the javascript function to the corresponding control, below is the detail
protected void GridView_Data_DataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
{
((Button)e.Row.Cells[1].Controls[0]).Attributes.Add("onclick", "javascript:return confirm('are you sure copy?')");
}
}
by the way, there is no "onclientclick" in the button fleid, so you have to bind the javascript code like this