Question

I have a asp.net gridview. A template field of type dropdownlist is contained in a column:

<asp:TemplateField HeaderTextLabel="strManagedOETeamart">
                        <ItemTemplate>
                            <asp:DropDownList runat="server" AutoPostBack="True" OnSelectedIndexChanged="SelectedTeamartChanged">
                                <asp:ListItem Selected="True" Value="White"> White </asp:ListItem>
                                <asp:ListItem Value="Silver"> Silver </asp:ListItem>
                                <asp:ListItem Value="DarkGray"> Dark Gray </asp:ListItem>
                                <asp:ListItem Value="Khaki"> Khaki </asp:ListItem>
                                <asp:ListItem Value="DarkKhaki"> Dark Khaki </asp:ListItem>
                            </asp:DropDownList>
                        </ItemTemplate>
                    </asp:TemplateField>

How can I get the GridViewRow when the user selects another item?

    protected void SelectedTeamartChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        DropDownList dropDown = (DropDownList) sender;
        //I would like to know the GridViewRow this DropDownList is in

    }

Answer 1

You’re looking for the NamingContainer property:

GridViewItem row = (GridViewRow)dropDown.NamingContainer;

By the way, that works for any kind of web databound control like GridView, DataList,Repeater or ListView.

Consider this more complex requirement: you have a GridView which is nested in another GridView. Now you’re handling a DropDownList’s SelectedIndexChanged event that is inside the child’s GridView and you want to get the reference to the GridViewRow of the parent GridView:

var control = (Control)sender;
var row = (GridViewRow)control.NamingContainer;
var parentRow = (GridViewRow)row.NamingContainer.NamingContainer;

That’s the safest and easiest way to get it.