Question

I have a gridview using <asp:BoundField DataField="Comments" HeaderText="COMMENTS" />, I would like to only show the first 20 characters in the Commemnt column when the gridview gets populated. Is there way to accomplish this in VB? Thank you.

Answer 1

One way is using the RowDataBound event in codebehind:

Protected Sub Gridview1_RowDataBound(sender As Object, e As GridViewRowEventArgs) Handles Gridview1.RowDataBound
    Select Case e.Row.RowType
        Case DataControlRowType.DataRow
            ' assuming the comments column is the first column '
            If e.Row.Cells(0).Text.Length > 20 Then
                e.Row.Cells(0).Text = e.Row.Cells(0).Text.Substring(0, 20)
            End If
    End Select
End Sub

Note that you can access the text on this way only with BoundFields. With TemplateFields you need to use FindControl to get a reference of your controls(f.e. a TextBox).

If you would use a TemplateField you could also limit the text on the aspx markup:

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Commnents">
<ItemTemplate>
    <asp:TextBox ID="txtID"  
         MaxLength="20" runat="server" 
         Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Comments") %>'>
    </asp:TextBox>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>