Question

As I mentioned in a recent question on how to show strings with carriage returns in a gridview, I also wondered about how to format this particular string differently, on the fly.

The string coming back from the database has carriage returns. It is then directly bound to a GridViewColumn like this:

<GridViewColumn Width="365" Header="Desc" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding desc}" />

Say I want to remove those carriage returns, using a String.Replace, but without altering the DataTable the gridview is bound to.

I used to do something similar in ASP.net with the Repeater.OnItemDataBound method, applying formatting or the like.

Answer 1

You would need to make a value converter:

[ValueConversion(typeof(string), typeof(string))]
public class ReplaceCarriageReturnConverter : IValueConverter
{
    public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
    {
        return value as string == null ? string.Empty : (value as string).Replace("\r", " - "); ;
    }

    public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
}

Declare your converter:

<local:ReplaceCarriageReturnConverter x:Key="ReplaceCarriageReturnConverter"/>

Modify your binding:

<GridViewColumn Width="365" Header="Desc" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding desc, Converter={StaticResource ReplaceCarriageReturnConverter}}" />