Adding object to DataTable and create a dynamic GridView

Question

I have a lot of this working and have created a dropdown and a treeview using this technique. An ajax call to create controls on the fly and return them to the page fully constructed and configured using jqueryajax and C#. But Im stuck on creating a datatable from my class object. The control obviously returns a double looped gridView, I just want it to write out a view of the returned data, eventually with all the goodness of gridView CRUD Ops. Its something simple Im doing wrong can you help?

Here is my C# code for creating a GridView

[WebMethod]
        public static AjaxReturnObject GetProductsByCategoryID(string CategoryID)
        {
            AjaxReturnObject o = new AjaxReturnObject();
            int catID = Convert.ToInt32(CategoryID);
            Product.ProductCollection products = new Product().GetProductsByCategoryID(catID);
            if (products.Count == 0)
            {
                o.Message = "There was no data returned";
                o.Status = 999;

                return o;
            }
            else
            {
                // build a new GridView (or List View) for the UI and populate it with data.
                // 1: Initialize a object of type DataTable.
                DataTable dt = new DataTable();

                //2: Initialize a object of type DataRow
                DataRow drow;

                //3: Initialize enough objects of type DataColumns
                DataColumn col1 = new DataColumn("Product Name", typeof(string));
                DataColumn col2 = new DataColumn("Product Description", typeof(string));
                DataColumn col3 = new DataColumn("Price", typeof(string));
                DataColumn col4 = new DataColumn("Col4", typeof(string));

                //4: Adding DataColumns to DataTable dt
                dt.Columns.Add(col1);
                dt.Columns.Add(col2);
                dt.Columns.Add(col3);
                dt.Columns.Add(col4);

                //5: Adding values in DataColumns       
                for (int i = 0; i < products.Count; i++)
                {

                    foreach (Product item in products)
                    {

                        drow = dt.NewRow();
                        dt.Rows.Add(drow);
                        dt.Rows[i][col1] = item.ProductName.ToString();// i.ToString();
                        dt.Rows[i][col2] = item.ProductDescription.ToString();
                        dt.Rows[i][col3] = String.Format("{0:C}", item.Price);
                        dt.Rows[i][col4] = String.Format("{0:.00}", item.Price);
                    }

                }


                GridView GridView1 = new GridView();
                GridView1.DataSource = dt;
                GridView1.DataBind();


                // Render the new control and return it to the Ajax Return Object
                StringWriter tw = new StringWriter();
                Html32TextWriter writer = new Html32TextWriter(tw);
                GridView1.RenderControl(writer);
                writer.Close();
                o.Object = tw.ToString();


                o.Message = "Result Data Message";
                o.Status = 1;

                return o;
            }
        }
    }

Answer 1

Though the above answer is right.

But a better way would be to write extension method which converts the collection to DataTable and we can use it anywhere in the application, i have one in my project which is used to Convert List<T> to DataTable.

Here it goes:

public static class ListExtensions
{
   public static DataTable ToDataTable<T>(this List<T> iList)
   {
    DataTable dataTable = new DataTable();
    PropertyDescriptorCollection propertyDescriptorCollection =
        TypeDescriptor.GetProperties(typeof(T));
    for (int i = 0; i < propertyDescriptorCollection.Count; i++)
    {
        PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor = propertyDescriptorCollection[i];
        Type type = propertyDescriptor.PropertyType;

        if (type.IsGenericType && type.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(Nullable<>))
            type = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(type);


        dataTable.Columns.Add(propertyDescriptor.Name, type);
    }
    object[] values = new object[propertyDescriptorCollection.Count];
    foreach (T iListItem in iList)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < values.Length; i++)
        {
            values[i] = propertyDescriptorCollection[i].GetValue(iListItem);
        }
        dataTable.Rows.Add(values);
    }
    return dataTable;
  }
}

and just use it on any List<T> this way:

List<Product> products = new List<Product>();
DataTable dtProducts = products.ToDataTable();

Answer 2

You are running unnecessary foreach loop. Change you looping structure as below :

//5: Adding values in DataColumns       
                for (int i = 0; i < products.Count; i++)
                {

                    //foreach (Product item in products)
                    //{
                    Product item = products[i];
                    drow = dt.NewRow();
                    dt.Rows.Add(drow);
                    dt.Rows[i][col1] = item.ProductName.ToString();// i.ToString();
                    dt.Rows[i][col2] = item.ProductDescription.ToString();
                    dt.Rows[i][col3] = String.Format("{0:C}", item.Price);
                    dt.Rows[i][col4] = String.Format("{0:.00}", item.Price);
                    //}

                }

Answer 3

I believe that you have make a mistake on the loop

// remove that line
// for (int i = 0; i < products.Count; i++)
int i = 0;
{    
    foreach (Product item in products)
    {    
        drow = dt.NewRow();
        dt.Rows.Add(drow);
        dt.Rows[i][col1] = item.ProductName.ToString();// i.ToString();
        dt.Rows[i][col2] = item.ProductDescription.ToString();
        dt.Rows[i][col3] = String.Format("{0:C}", item.Price);
        dt.Rows[i][col4] = String.Format("{0:.00}", item.Price);
        // and here move to next
        i++;
    }    
}