Question

I have about 11 GridViews on my page: GridView1, GridView2, … GridView10 and GridViewActive.
GridView1 to GridView10 are invisible, but GridViewActive is Visible.
Based on different conditions I need to copy structure of one GridView to GridViewActive.
I need to do something like

//common params
SqlDataSource1.SelectParameters["CommonParam1"].DefaultValue = this.commonParam1;      
if (reportname = "report1") 
{
    SqlDataSource1.SelectParameters["Param"].DefaultValue = this.param;      
    CopyGridViewStructure(GridView1, GridViewActive); 
}
else if (reportname = "report2") 
{ 
    SqlDataSource1.SelectParameters["AnotherParam"].DefaultValue = this.anotherParam;
    CopyGridViewStructure(GridView2, GridViewActive); 
}
etc.

// DO OTHER STAFF WITH GRIDVIEWATIVE HERE AND IN OTHER METHODS

And on button click (actually it is a bit more complicated than simple ButtonClick, as it is Ajax which calls Button click, and button is actually invisible for user):

//this block doesn't work for now, because grvActive doesn't have any structure
this.grvActive.DataSource = SqlDataSource1; 
this.grvActive.DataBind();

I need to copy only Columns. Have not found sollution for this. GridView doesn’t contain Clone method.

EDIT:

GridView1 to GridView10 and GridViewActive are not dynamically created.
Example of GridView:

<asp:GridView ID="GridView2" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" Visible="false">
            <Columns>
                <asp:BoundField DataField="username" HeaderText="First Name">
                    <ItemStyle Width="110px"></ItemStyle>
                </asp:BoundField>
                <asp:BoundField DataField="usersurname" HeaderText="Last Name">
                    <ItemStyle Width="110"></ItemStyle>
                </asp:BoundField>
                <asp:BoundField DataField="usertype" HeaderText="User Type">
                    <ItemStyle Width="100px"></ItemStyle>
                </asp:BoundField>
                <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Login">
                    <ItemTemplate>
                        <asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblLastModifyDate" Text='<%# MyUtility.MyCommon.FormatDate(Eval("logindate").ToString()) %>' />
                    </ItemTemplate>
                    <ItemStyle Width="177px"></ItemStyle>
                </asp:TemplateField>
                </Columns>
        </asp:GridView>

Other GridView are very similar, but with different columnnames and datafields. Some of them contains different TemplateField, some doesn’t have TemplateFields at all.

Answer 1

I have not found a sollution for copying GridView structure, however, I have found a solution for my problem. Instead of Cloning structure, I am saving GridView ID and then I am using FindControl.

private string GridID 
{
        get
        {
            return ViewState["GridID "].ToString();
        }
        set
        {
            ViewState["GridID "] = value;
        }
}

And then

SqlDataSource1.SelectParameters["CommonParam1"].DefaultValue = this.commonParam1;       
if (reportname = "report1")  
{ 
    SqlDataSource1.SelectParameters["Param"].DefaultValue = this.param;       
    // //CopyGridViewStructure(GridView1, GridViewActive);  
    GridID = "GridView1";
} 
else if (reportname = "report2")  
{  
    SqlDataSource1.SelectParameters["AnotherParam"].DefaultValue = this.anotherParam; 
    CopyGridViewStructure(GridView2, GridViewActive);  
    GridID = "GridView2";
} 
etc.

And when I need to use gridView, I am using FindControl:

GridView grd = (GridView) this.FindControl(GridID);

// actually for my page I am using masterpage and FindControl is a bit more complicated:
GridView grd = (GridView)((ContentPlaceHolder)(this.Controls[0].FindControl("mainContent"))).FindControl(GridID);