Question

Let’s say I have data like such:

class Location
{
    public int Id { get; private set; }
    public string City { get; set; }
    public string State { get; set; }
    public string Country { get; set; }
}

class Friend
{
    public int Id { get; }
    public string FriendName { get; set; }
    public Location Address { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
    public bool IsReliable { get; set; }
}

Let’s say I bind an ASP.NET 2.0 GridView control to my own IList like so:

GridView1.DataSource = new List<Friend>
{
    new Friend { Name = "...", Age = 22, ... }
};

GridView1.DataBind();

But I want to have only the following columns in my GridView with the following custom captions/column headers:

1. FriendName (Column Caption: Friend Name)
2. City (Column Caption: City)
3. Age (Column Caption: Age)

How do I do that?

In other words, how do I bind a GridView control to a custom members of my own custom IList selectively?

Answer 1

Been a few years I don’t touch webforms grids but IIRC you can either do that on the grid side, using the <Columns> notation:

<asp:GridView ...>
    <Columns>
      <asp:BoundField DataField="FriendName"
        readonly="true"      
        headertext="Friend Name"/>
      <asp:BoundField DataField="Address.City"
        readonly="true"      
        headertext="City"/>
      <asp:BoundField DataField="Age"
        readonly="true"      
        headertext="Age"/>
    </Columns>
</asp:GridView>

or use the IEnumerable/Linq extensions to transform your resuls as so:

GridView.DataSource = friends.Select(friend => 
     new { FriendName, City = friend.Address.City, Age });

and create a similar <Columns> notation for this new output, you will also need this for the customized headertext.

EDIT: In case the DateField=”Address.City” won’t work, there is the templateField option, with the <ItemTemplate> you can simply <%# Eval("Address.City") %> in its content.