Bind Grid to deep object

[Scott]

I have an entity object that contains entities with properties I wish to bind to grid columns.  When binding, I recieve the following exception:

DataBinding: 'EFPoC.OrderDetail+GridItem' does not contain a property with the name 'entity.PartNumber'.

However, my entity does have a property named 'entity' which contains a property named 'PartNumber'.

This seems like it should 'just work' so can anyone help me determine what I've missed? BTW, the exception is thrown when I make the call to CartGrid.DataBind();

Thanks in advance!
Regards, Scott

Here's my entity - I'm binding to a list of these.

public class GridEntity {
   public bool Checked;
   public CartItem entity;
}

My grid is defined like this:

<telerik:RadGrid ID="CartGrid" runat="server"
        GridLines="None"
        Skin="Vista"
        EnableViewState="true"
        OnItemCommand="CartGrid_OnItemCommand">
        <HeaderContextMenu EnableTheming="True">
            <CollapseAnimation Type="OutQuint" Duration="200"></CollapseAnimation>
        </HeaderContextMenu>
        <MasterTableView AutoGenerateColumns="false"
            DataKeyNames="entity.PartNumber,entity.ItemLegalName"
            ClientDataKeyNames="entity.PartNumber,entity.ItemLegalName">
            <Columns>
                <telerik:GridCheckBoxColumn DataField="Checked" HeaderText="Selected" >
                    <HeaderStyle Width="10%" />
                </telerik:GridCheckBoxColumn>
                <telerik:GridBoundColumn DataField="entity.PartNumber" HeaderText="Kit #">
                    <HeaderStyle Width="20%" />
                </telerik:GridBoundColumn>
                <telerik:GridBoundColumn DataField="entity.ItemLegalName" HeaderText="Kit Name">
                    <HeaderStyle Width="55%" />
                </telerik:GridBoundColumn>
                <telerik:GridButtonColumn ButtonType="PushButton" CommandName="removeFromCart" CommandArgument="0" Text="remove item" ConfirmDialogType="RadWindow">
                    <HeaderStyle Width="15%" />
                </telerik:GridButtonColumn>
            </Columns>
            <RowIndicatorColumn>
                <HeaderStyle Width="20px"></HeaderStyle>
            </RowIndicatorColumn>
            <ExpandCollapseColumn>
                <HeaderStyle Width="20px"></HeaderStyle>
            </ExpandCollapseColumn>
        </MasterTableView>
        <FilterMenu EnableTheming="True">
            <CollapseAnimation Type="OutQuint" Duration="200"></CollapseAnimation>
        </FilterMenu>
    </telerik:RadGrid>

I'm using this loading code:

using (CartServiceClient client = new CartServiceClient())
{
    Cart cart = client.GetCart(UserEntityID);
    var entityList = from item in cart.CartItems
        select new GridItem {
            Checked = false,
            entity = item
        };

    CartGrid.DataSource = entityList;
    CartGrid.DataBind();
}

[Scott]

I worked around the problem by flatening out the entity with an anonymous object... 

using (CartServiceClient client = new CartServiceClient())
{
    Cart cart = client.GetCart(UserEntityID);
    var entityList =
        from item in cart.CartItems
        select new
        {
            Checked = false,
            PartNumber = item.PartNumber,
            ItemLegalName = item.ItemLegalName,
            entity = item
        };

    viewEntities = entityList;
}

I tried turning on AutoColumnGeneration and still found that the properties of the 'entity' property are not reflected and turned into columns. 

Is deep binding a known limitation?

[Rosen]

Hello Scott,

The behavior you are experiencing is due to the fact that nested object are currently not supported as DataKeyName values. However, I have added this to our product backlog for future implementation.

Please excuse us for the inconvenience this may caused you.

Kind regards,
Rosen
the Telerik team

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