Question

i wish to create a form at runtime that will read the columns for any datasource and create fields based on the columns and datatype just like a datagridviews insert line

Best regards,
Mark

Answer 1

I don’t fully understand your question. Is it correct that you want to create a Windows form which provides input fields (textboxes, checkboxes, etc.) for all fields/properties of an object that you feed to the form as its DataSource?

You might have to use reflection for this (see the System.Reflection namespace). For example, to get a list of all properties:

using System.Reflection;

....

public object DataSource;

...

Debug.Assert( DataSource != null );
var properties = DataSource.GetType().GetProperties();

You would then instantiate one input control per property:

foreach ( var property in properties )
{
    // extract some information about each property:
    string propertyName = property.Name;
    Type propertyType = property.PropertyType;
    bool propertyReadOnly = !property.CanWrite;

    // create input controls based on this information:
    // ...
}

However, it might be fairly tricky to reliably map property types to the correct input control; for example, what are you going to do when you encounter a property with some unknown class as its type, or when a property is a collection of values? You might have to create a sub-form inside your form in some cases; in other cases, a listbox might be enough.