Question

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can take a DataSet that I have created by parsing Excel and display it in my MVC2 website using MVCContrib’s grid?

My app lets people upload spreadsheets, review them and import the data if there are no errors.

Each spreadsheet consists of about thirty column that are required and a number of client specific fields that are defined on the server and may or may not be present in the spreadsheet. The column names will match and are predetermined.

I need to match up each column in the spreadsheet with the appropriate field in the database and present the results to the user to preview.

Any ideas on how to generate a grid to display would be appreciated.

Answer 1

It is possible by creating a custom GridModel.
Here I based my grid on an IList filled with IDictionaries, but this should also be possible with data taken from a DataTable.
The trick is to give the data structure to the constructor of the custom GridModel and let the custom GridModel generate columns based on the data structure.
It is a bit ugly, but it works good.
(and it is even uglier in VB.NET with the funny lambda expressions)

The controller action code:

Dim list As IList(Of IDictionary(Of String, String)) = New List(Of IDictionary(Of String, String))
Dim row1 As IDictionary(Of String, String) = New Dictionary(Of String, String)()
row1.Add("Column1", "ValueColumn1Row1")
row1.Add("Column2", "ValueColumn2Row1")
Dim row2 As IDictionary(Of String, String) = New Dictionary(Of String, String)()
row2.Add("Column1", "ValueColumn1Row2")
row2.Add("Column2", "ValueColumn2Row2")
list.Add(row1)
list.Add(row2)
ViewData("DynamicData") = list

The custom GridModel:

Public Class DynamicGridModel
Inherits MvcContrib.UI.Grid.GridModel(Of IDictionary(Of String, String))

    Public Sub New(ByVal dataToRender As IList(Of IDictionary(Of String, String)))
        If dataToRender.Count > 0 Then
            For Each name As String In dataToRender(0).Keys
                Dim columnName As String = name
                Column.For(Function(rowData As IDictionary(Of String, String)) rowData(columnName)).Named(columnName)
            Next
        End If
    End Sub

End Class

The syntax in the view:

Html.Grid(Of IDictionary(Of String, String))("DynamicData").WithModel(New DynamicGridModel(ViewData("DynamicData")))