Question

The .NET DataGrid control has an AutoGeneratingColumn Event that fires once for every bound data item right after the data source is changed. This is useful because you could define certain columns in the template, like so:

<Columns>
        <asp:HyperLinkField DataNavigateUrlFields="ID" DataNavigateUrlFormatString="ww{0}" DataTextField="ID" DataTextFormatString="{0}" HeaderText="ID" />
</Columns>

and then prevent the same column from being replicated when columns are autogenerated from your data source. In this example, you could prevent the ID column from being autogenerated like this:

Private Sub DG_AutoGeneratingColumn(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As DataGridAutoGeneratingColumnEventArgs)
    Dim headername As String = e.Column.Header.ToString()
    If headername = "ID" Then
        e.Cancel = True
    End If
End Sub

My question is whether a similar functionality can be achieved with a GridView control.

DETAILS

The data source for the gridview is a DataTable object, which I am binding like so:

    GridView1.DataSource = results.Tables("Vitals")
    GridView1.DataBind()

The number of columns in my DataTable will vary, which is why it is extremely convenient for me to use AutoGenerateColumns.

Answer 1

To do that you should handle the RowCreated event and write something like the following:

private List<int> hideColumnsIndexes = new List<int>(); 

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    hideColumnsIndexes.Clear();
}

protected void GridView1_OnRowCreated(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
    //Find indexes
    if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.Header)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < e.Row.Cells.Count; i++ )
        {
            if (e.Row.Cells[i].Text == "Id")
            {
                hideColumnsIndexes.Add(i);
            }

            //Add more columns to hide
        }
    }

    //Hide cells
    foreach (var index in hideColumnsIndexes)
    {
        e.Row.Cells[index].Visible = false;
    }
}