How to bind DataTable of custom objects to GridView

Question

I have a list comprising of two other lists of custom objects that are linked by an Id. Essentially I have an 'CPDActivity' object that has many properties and an 'CPDActivityExtended' object with several more. I then have a 'CPDActivityComplete' object that contains one each of the other objects. These complete objects get added to a list which is what populates a DataTable.

I need to be able to bind this DataTable to a GridView and display the values of the properties of the CPDActivityComplete's two child objects. For example CPDActivityComplete.CPDActivity.A under an 'A' column.

Here is a basic picture of what I'm trying to do:

The list of custom objects visualised:

What I have tried so far:

The DataTables are populated using Entity Framework & LINQ and I have bound the GridView to the resulting DataTable:

DataTable dt = getCPDData.ToDataTable<CPDActivityComplete>(cpdActivityCompleteList);
cpd_gv_activities.DataSource = dt;
cpd_gv_activities.DataBind();

I have a simple GridView to test things out:

<asp:GridView ID="cpd_gv_activities" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false" AllowPaging="True" PageSize="15">
<Columns>
    <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Full Name">
        <ItemStyle CssClass="fixedcell"></ItemStyle>
        <ItemTemplate>
            <asp:Label ID="vd_gv_lbl_FullName" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("CPDActivity.A") %>'></asp:Label>
        </ItemTemplate>   
    </asp:TemplateField>
</Columns>

But this results in an error:

DataBinding: 'System.String' does not contain a property with the name 'A'.

How do I bind the label.text to CPDActivityExtended.CPDActivity.A property?

VDWWD · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-22 08:18:19Z

2

Switch to a strongly typed GridView. Then you have easy access to all the properties and type-safety.

So first add the ItemType to the GridView

<asp:GridView ID="cpd_gv_activities" runat="server" ItemType="YourNameSpace.CPDActivityComplete">

Now you can use Item in the GridView and access properties

<asp:Label ID="vd_gv_lbl_FullName" runat="server" Text='<%# Item.A %>'></asp:Label>

And last, don't convert to a DataTable (was not needed in the first place) but bind the List with the class directly.

cpd_gv_activities.DataSource = cpdActivityCompleteList;
cpd_gv_activities.DataBind();

answered Aug 22, 2018 at 8:18

VDWWD

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1 Comment

Agamemnon Over a year ago

This is exactly what I was looking for. Great answer, thank you! I have made the changes you suggested and everything is working now.

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