DataGridView databinding

Question

I give a simple example to explain what I want:

I defined a class called Student, it has two properties: Name and Subjects.

public class Student()
{
     public string Name;
     public List<string> Subjects;
}

I created two instances of Student class, for example:

List<string> jackSubjects = new List<string>();
jackSubjects.Add("Math");
jackSubjects.Add("Physics");
Student Jack = new Student("Jack", jackSubjects);
List<string> alanSubjects = new List<string>();
alanSubjects.Add("Accounting");
alanSubjects.Add("Science");
Student Alan = new Student("Alan", alanSubjects);

Then I create a List studentList:

List<Student> studentList = new List<Student>();
studentList.Add(Jack);
studentList.Add(Alan);

My question is, is there any way I can databind this studentList with a DataGridView, something like the following:

dataGridView.DataSource = studentList;

The first column is the student name and the second column is a combobox which shows all the subjects for the student.

Thank you for your time in advance.

Answer 1

Something like this will work:

1. Add a RowDataBound event to your grid and create a template column to hold the dropdownlist for the subjects:

   <asp:GridView ID="dataGridView" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false" OnRowDataBound="dataGridView_RowDataBound">
      <Columns>
          <asp:BoundField DataField="Name" />
          <asp:TemplateField>
              <ItemTemplate>
                  <asp:DropDownList ID="subjects" runat="server" ></asp:DropDownList>
              </ItemTemplate>
          </asp:TemplateField>
      </Columns>
   

2. Then on code behind handle the RowDataBound event as so:

   protected void dataGridView_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
   {
     if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
     {
       var ddl = (e.Row.FindControl("subjects") as DropDownList);
       ddl.DataSource = (e.Row.DataItem as Student).Subjects;
       ddl.DataBind();
     }
   }
   

Renders:

BTW, your Student class should look like this:

public class Student
{
     public string Name {get;set;}
     public List<string> Subjects {get;set;}

     public Student(string name, List<string> subjects)
     {
         Name = name;
         Subjects = subjects;
     }
}