Question

I have a GridView with a bunch of DynamicFields like so;

<asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" DataSourceID="GridDataSource">
<Columns>
<asp:DynamicField HeaderText="Date Submitted" DataField="DATE_CREATED" />
<asp:DynamicField HeaderText="Assigned To" DataField="ASSIGNED_TO" />
<asp:DynamicField HeaderText="Active Account" DataField="Active_Account" />
<asp:DynamicField HeaderText="Client ID" DataField="CLIENT_ID" />
<asp:DynamicField HeaderText="Client Type" DataField="CLIENT_Type" />
</Columns>
</asp:GridView>

<asp:EntityDataSource ID="GridDataSource" OnSelected="TotalRows" runat="server" 
EnableDelete="true">
    <WhereParameters>
        <asp:DynamicControlParameter ControlID="FilterRepeater" />
    </WhereParameters>
</asp:EntityDataSource>

Now it displays fine, the right data comes to screen but when I try to access that data using a row number I’m always finding blank cells. For example I tried the following to check every cell but to no avail;

Dim x As Integer = 0
    Dim y As Integer = 0
    While x < GridView1.Rows.Count
        While y < GridView1.Rows(x).Cells.Count
            If Not (GridView1.Rows(x).Cells(y).Text = "") Then
                MsgBox(String.Format("{0},{1},{2}", x.ToString, y.ToString, 
                      GridView1.Rows(x).Cells(y).Text))
            End If
            y = y + 1
        End While
        x = x + 1
        y = 0
    End While

No message box displayed so all the cells are empty strings. But I can clearly see they’re populated on screen! What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE

After Pilgerstorfer Franz suggestion that I look for Textbox elements I used the following code which basically looks at all the cells in the table and try’s to pull data out of them and if it’s not blank then display a msgbox (also informs me of any new controls I haven’t accounted for);

If GridView1.Rows(0).RowType = DataControlRowType.DataRow Then
    For r = 0 To GridView1.Rows.Count - 1
        For c = 0 To (GridView1.Rows(r).Cells.Count - 1)
            Dim cell = GridView1.Rows(r).Cells(c)

            For b = 0 To cell.Controls.Count - 1
                If (cell.Controls(b).GetType() Is GetType(TextBox)) Then
                    Dim td = CType(cell.Controls(b), TextBox)
                    Text = td.Text.Trim
                ElseIf (cell.Controls(b).GetType() Is GetType(LiteralControl)) Then
                    Dim td = CType(cell.Controls(b), LiteralControl)
                    Text = td.Text.Trim
                ElseIf (cell.Controls(b).GetType() Is GetType(DynamicControl)) Then
                    Dim td = CType(cell.Controls(b), DynamicControl)
                    Text = td.Table.Columns.Item(c).DisplayName()
                Else
                    MsgBox(String.Format("New Control of type: {0}", cell.Controls(b).GetType().FullName))
                End If
                If Not Text = "" Then
                    MsgBox(String.Format("{0},{1},{2}", c.ToString, b.ToString, Text))
                End If
            Next
        Next
    Next
End If

Unfortunately most cells just contained DynamicControl and since I was putting the DisplayName into Text I was just getting the column header every time. So how do I get the text value property out of a DynamicControl?

Additional Info

I’m further confused by this problem because since this is a project that I’m updating there is initial code two lines of which are;

Dim UserID = Convert.ToInt32(GridView1.DataKeys(e.RowIndex).Value)
Dim clientType As String = GridView1.DataKeys(e.RowIndex).Item(1).ToString

These successfully bring back UserID and ClientType. Now I don’t really understand DataKeys but I tried using;

Dim clientType As String = GridView1.DataKeys(e.RowIndex).Item(Num).ToString

where Num increases by one every time expecting it to bring back the rest of the row data, but I simply got an index was out of range error.

ANOTHER UPDATE!!

Here is another bit of the ASPX page but I’n not entirely certain what it does. Pilgerstorfer Franz created some code to look for the textboxes created by the dynamicControl. Now I’m wondering if this code here causes other types of controls to be used rather than Textboxes. Thoughts?

<asp:FilterRepeater ID="FilterRepeater" runat="server" Visible="false">
            <ItemTemplate>
                <h2><asp:Label ID="lblDisplay" runat="server" Text='<%#
Eval("DisplayName") %>' AssociatedControlID="DynamicFilter$DropDownList1" /></h2>
                <asp:DynamicFilter runat="server" ID="DynamicFilter" 
OnSelectedIndexChanged="OnFilterSelectedIndexChanged" />
            </ItemTemplate>
            <FooterTemplate><br /><br /></FooterTemplate>
        </asp:FilterRepeater>

Answer 1

Iterating through the controls never worked for me so in the end I gave up and just queried the DB again… Eh it works.