[Solved] Binding grid to an anonymous type

[Chris Williams]

Hi,

Do you have a brief example of binding the grid to an anonymous type?  I'm using OpenAccess ORM in a multi-tier environment, and have had nice results so far, because I've only had to return IQueryable of a strongly-typed item from the model. I have to return a slight variation now and want to do so via an anonymous type, but I haven't seen any example of how to do so.  I have the method set up in my DAL to return an object... just looking at how that might bind to the grid.

thanks

[Georgi Krustev]

Hello Chris,

In order to achieve your goal you will need to modify the source code. You will need to add extension method which will allow you bind grid to anonymous type. Here is a code snippet of the extension method:

namespace Telerik.Web.Mvc.UI
{
    public static class ViewComponentFactoryExtensions
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Creates a new <see cref="Telerik.Web.UI.Grid<T>"/> bound to the specified data item type. Suitable for custom client-side binding where
        /// there is no server type corresponding to the data item.
        /// </summary>
        /// <example>
        /// <code lang="CS">
        ///  <%= Html.Telerik().GridWithAnonimousTypes(new {Name = "", Age = 0})
        ///             .Name("Grid")
        ///             .Columns(columns=>
        ///             {
        ///                 columns.Add(o => o.Name);
        ///                 columns.Add(o => o.Age);
        ///             })
        /// %>
        /// </code>
        /// </example>
        public static GridBuilder<T> GridWithAnonimousTypes<T>(this ViewComponentFactory factory, T value) where T : class
        {
            return factory.Grid<T>();
        }
    }
}

All the best,
Georgi Krustev
the Telerik team

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[Chris Williams]

Thanks, that's very helpful.

Chris

[Box]

Georgi,

We've got a similar requirement.

The user selects a domain type (table name) from a drop down list and the grid needs to be populated with data from that table.

We're using OpenAccess ORM as well. We can invoke the method (using reflection) that returns the collection however, the collection type returned is of type Sytem.Object.

I created an extension as you've suggested but still get a cast compilation error: "Cannot implicitly convert GridBuilder<object> to object"

///Model
public class ExampleViewModel
{
     public object Items {get;set;}

     public void PopulateTableDetails(string tableName)
     {
            Type staticRepositoryType = typeof(IStaticRepository);
            MethodInfo[] sDRMethods = staticRepositoryType.GetMethods();

            tableType = Type.GetType("AssemblyName."+tableName+", AssemblyName");

            foreach (MethodInfo method in sDRMethods)
            {
                if (method.Name.Contains(domainTable))
                {
                    Items = (method.Invoke(_staticRepository, null));
                    //Items is a collection of "tableName" objects which has to be populated in the grid.

                }
            }
     }
}

//View
<%= Html.Telerik().GridWithAnonymousTypes(Model.Items) %> //does not compile. Method expecting GridBuilder<object> but Items is of type Object.

Your help is appreciated.