Hello,

I used a tableStyle to format my columns in my datagrid.

DataGridTextBoxColumn dcFinalDate = new DataGridTextBoxColumn();
dcFinalDate.HeaderText = "Final date";
dcFinalDate.MappingName = "UGFNDT";
dcFinalDate.Width=100;
dcFinalDate.NullText="";
dcFinalDate.Format="####/##/##";
tableStyle.GridColumnStyles.Add(dcFinalDate);

It works good if there is a string entered, fe: 20060202, it will be 2006/02/02.
But when there is no string (because the field is not required), then I'll get // .... How can I get rid of that ?

Greets,

Dirk

You could use a regular expression to see what kind of data you have

protected override object GetColumnValueAtRow(CurrencyManager source, int rowNum) { DateTime dt; String strIn; String strOut =""; System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex regDate; regDate = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(@"\d{8}$"); if (base.GetColumnValueAtRow(source, rowNum).Equals(DBNull.Value)) { return this.NullText; } strIn= base.GetColumnValueAtRow(source, rowNum).ToString(); if (regDate.IsMatch(strIn)) { try { dt = DateTime.ParseExact(strIn, "yyyyddMM", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US")); strOut = dt.ToShortDateString(); } catch { } } else { strOut = strIn; } return strOut; }

I would use a DateTimeFormatInfo to set the date format.

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Data.SqlClient; using System.Globalization; namespace DataGrid { public partial class Form1 : Form { public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); } private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { String strConn = "Server = .\\SQLEXPRESS;Database = Pubs;Integrated Security = SSPI;"; DataTable dt = new DataTable(); SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(strConn); SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter("Select Title, Pubdate from titles", conn); da.Fill(dt); dataGrid1.DataSource = dt; CurrencyManager cm = this.BindingContext[dt] as CurrencyManager; PropertyDescriptor pd = cm.GetItemProperties()["pubdate"]; DateTimeFormatInfo df = new DateTimeFormatInfo(); df.ShortDatePattern = "yyyy/MM/dd"; DataGridTableStyle ts = new DataGridTableStyle(); ts.MappingName = dt.TableName; DataGridTextBoxColumn tcTitle = new DataGridTextBoxColumn(); tcTitle.MappingName = "Title"; tcTitle.HeaderText = "Title"; tcTitle.Width = 250; DataGridTextBoxColumn tcDate = new DataGridTextBoxColumn(pd, "d"); tcDate.MappingName = "pubdate"; tcDate.HeaderText = "Pub Date"; tcDate.Width = 150; tcDate.FormatInfo=df; tcDate.NullText = ""; ts.GridColumnStyles.Add(tcTitle); ts.GridColumnStyles.Add(tcDate); dataGrid1.TableStyles.Add(ts); DataRow dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["Title"] = "My new book"; dr["pubdate"] = DBNull.Value; dt.Rows.Add(dr); } } }

I tried it, but the problem is that I use a derived class of DataGridTextBox.

Perhaps i'm missing something, because I can't do the following:
DataGridTextBoxColumn tcDate = new DataGridTextBoxColumn(pd, "d");

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Drawing;

namespace Pfizer.EMEA.Toolkit.Controls.DataGridColumns
{

/// <summary>
/// Custom grid Textboxcolumn to provide rowselection.
/// </summary>
public class DataGridTextBoxColumnNoActive : DataGridTextBoxColumn
{
#region "Private variables"
private int _selectedRow;
#endregion

#region "Overrides"
protected override void Edit(CurrencyManager source, int rowNum, System.Drawing.Rectangle bounds, bool readOnly, string instantText, bool cellIsVisible)
{
try
{
if ((_selectedRow > - 1) && (_selectedRow < source.List.Count + 1) )
this.DataGridTableStyle.DataGrid.UnSelect(_selectedRow);
_selectedRow = rowNum;
DataGridTableStyle.DataGrid.Select(_selectedRow);
}
catch(Exception ex)
{}
}
#endregion
}

/// <summary>
/// Custom grid BoolColumn to provide rowselection.
/// </summary>

}

If you created a custom column style to begin with. Try overriding the GetColumnValueAtRow procedure for the datagridtextbox column you can format the value better from there

Perhaps a usefull remark.
The data resides on a AS/400 where the data is stored as : 20061008 (decimal value).

If possible I want to show it as: 08/10/2006 or 2006/10/08

You are going to have to use DateTime.ParseExact to convert the integer to a date. Try something like this.

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Data.SqlClient; using System.Globalization; namespace DataGrid { public partial class Form1 : Form { public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); } private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { DataTable dt = new DataTable(); dt.Columns.Add("pubdate", typeof (Int32)); dataGrid1.DataSource = dt; DataGridTableStyle ts = new DataGridTableStyle(); ts.MappingName = dt.TableName; DataGridTextBoxColumn tcDate = new DataGridTextBoxColumnNoActive(); tcDate.MappingName = "pubdate"; tcDate.HeaderText = "Pub Date"; tcDate.Width = 150; tcDate.NullText = ""; ts.GridColumnStyles.Add(tcDate); dataGrid1.TableStyles.Add(ts); DataRow drNew = dt.NewRow(); drNew["pubdate"] = 20061008; DataRow dr = dt.NewRow(); dr["pubdate"] = DBNull.Value; dt.Rows.Add(drNew); dt.Rows.Add(dr); } } public class DataGridTextBoxColumnNoActive : DataGridTextBoxColumn { #region "Private variables" private int _selectedRow; #endregion #region "Overrides" protected override void Edit(CurrencyManager source, int rowNum, System.Drawing.Rectangle bounds, bool readOnly, string instantText, bool cellIsVisible) { try { if ((_selectedRow > -1) && (_selectedRow < source.List.Count + 1)) this.DataGridTableStyle.DataGrid.UnSelect(_selectedRow); _selectedRow = rowNum; DataGridTableStyle.DataGrid.Select(_selectedRow); } catch (Exception ex) { } } protected override object GetColumnValueAtRow(CurrencyManager source, int rowNum) { DateTime dt; String strIn; String strOut = this.NullText; strIn= base.GetColumnValueAtRow(source, rowNum).ToString(); try { dt = DateTime.ParseExact(strIn,"yyyyddMM", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US")); strOut = dt.ToShortDateString(); } catch { } return strOut; } #endregion } }

protected override object GetColumnValueAtRow(CurrencyManager source, int rowNum)
{
DateTime dt;
String strIn;
String strOut = this.NullText;
strIn= base.GetColumnValueAtRow(source, rowNum).ToString();
try
{
dt = DateTime.ParseExact(strIn,"yyyyddMM", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US"));
strOut = dt.ToShortDateString();
}
catch
{
}
return strOut;
}

Is there a way to determin which column we're formatting then ? Because the result is very dynamic. The end-user can choose which field he wants to see in it's output. Some are text-values, other numeric values and some are date-values...

You could use a regular expression to see what kind of data you have

protected override object GetColumnValueAtRow(CurrencyManager source, int rowNum) { DateTime dt; String strIn; String strOut =""; System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex regDate; regDate = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(@"\d{8}$"); if (base.GetColumnValueAtRow(source, rowNum).Equals(DBNull.Value)) { return this.NullText; } strIn= base.GetColumnValueAtRow(source, rowNum).ToString(); if (regDate.IsMatch(strIn)) { try { dt = DateTime.ParseExact(strIn, "yyyyddMM", new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US")); strOut = dt.ToShortDateString(); } catch { } } else { strOut = strIn; } return strOut; }

I understand that, but it's complexer than that.

Some values in decimal fields, are meant to be as a decimal field (fe it contains a item-number, ...) but other contain dates. It's always depending of the column-name.