Question

I have a DataSet similar to the one below:

ID    Name    Data1   Data2
1     MM      X       1000
2     ST      Y       1000
3     EC      Z       1000
4     JT      T       1000

I display this DataSet in a DataGridView by binding the DataSet. What I would like to do is set the visibility of the Data2 column based on if all the data is similar or not.

So in the above example, I would want to hide the Data2 column because the data represented is common to all elements in the DataSet. But if any of the elements had a unique entry for that column, I would want the column to be visible.

Is there a way to do this without iterating over the DataSet? I prefer not to iterate as my DataSets are quite large and I want to perform this check for multiple columns.

Answer 1

You can use some LINQ to check to see how many distinct values you have in that column:

if(dataTable.AsEnumerable().Select(row => row["Data2"]).Distinct().Count() > 1)
{
    // Make column invisible
}

If there is more than 1 distinct value, then you know that not all of the values are equal.