Hierarchical DataSet Question

[Don]

I am trying to set up a hierarchical RadGridView in my application. I have a function that returns a DataSet with two tables and a table relation directly from a SQL Server 2008 R2 database. However, I am unable to get the grid to display more than one table when trying to use the AutoGenerateHierarchy property. I see a reference to an AutoGenerateHierarchyFromDataSet property in the Binding to Hierarchical Data Automatically entry for the RadGridView control in the help, but I cannot locate this property in the control.

I need to do all of this in code, rather than graphically, due to several others using the same code base and having to dynamically connect to a database server and database at runtime. In this instance, dynamically can also be taken to mean that the server and database names are filled in from a configuration file at application launch.

[Emanuel Varga]

Hello Don,

Please take a look at the Demos application under: GridView -> Hierarchy -> Hierachy First Look -> and in the right scenarios: Auto generated from data set.

Please take a look at that example and if everything is set up the same in your code please take a look at the relations provided in the dataset.

Hope this helps, if you have any other questions or comments, please let me know,

Best Regards,
Emanuel Varga
Telerik WinForms MVP

[Don]

My setup is different as I am doing late-binding to the data from data source information in a configuration file. I cannot set up the data source at design time, it must be done at run time. It would be nice if I could use a Binding Source object and fill Table Adapters, but that is not part of the specification I have to work with.

I looked at the API for the GridView control, but there is not enough information given to allow me to do more than make haphazard guesses as to what each property and method does and the types of parameters needed for each. Telerik did a great job on the basic documentation, but not so good on the low-level stuff.

[Emanuel Varga]

Hello again Don,

I don't really know i can help you without knowing with what are you working with and where you need to end up, but if you could provide a small sample project i would be more than happy to help you further.

Best Regards,
Emanuel Varga

Telerik WinForms MVP

[Richard Slade]

Hello Don,

As Emanuel has mentioned, some sort of sample would help. But in the meantime, perhaps you are referring to Load On Demand which will allow you to load the child view as you click to expand a parent row. If this is the case, please take a look at this help topic which will guide you through that subject.

Hope that helps, but let me know if you need further advice
Richard

[Don]

That is close to what I need, Richard, but not quite there. I was hoping to be able to give the grid all of the table and relationship data and have it generate the parent and child grids for me, but this has not been the case. I will use the unbound example as a starting point and go from there. Thank you for your efforts.

[Richard Slade]

Hello Don,

Please have a look at this help topic on AutoGenerateHierarchyFromDataSet which I think you will find of benefit.
Hope that helps
Richard

[Don]

I got things to work, but I had to code everything myself. The grid's reliance on the visual data tools in the IDE (binding sources and table adapters in particular) is a bit of a downer, but not insurmountable.

It seems that if you are not using a table adapter, which you can only do if you use the visual data tools at design time, the gridview cannot ferret out your table structure. That is why I ended up defining all of my gridview templates and their columns in code. Now that I've done it once it will be much easier to do in the future.

[Richard Slade]

Hi Don,

I'm not sure if you've seen all the help topics on auto generating hierarchies. You can also auto generate them from object relational hierarchies too. More info is here.

Hope you find this if interest.
Richard

[Julian Benkov]

Hello Don,

I suppose that your requirement is to bind RadGridView programmatically. If this is your case, you should set the AutoGenerateHierarchy property to true and setup DataSource to your DatSet and DataMember to your root table. Please keep in mind that in this scenario you must define DataRelation between your DataTables. Here is a small example:

Random rand = new Random();
DataTable table = new DataTable("Data1");
table.Columns.Add("ID", typeof(int));
table.Columns.Add("Name", typeof(string));
table.Columns.Add("Value", typeof(int));

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
{
    table.Rows.Add(i, "Row " + i, rand.Next(10));
}

DataTable table2 = new DataTable("Data2");
table2.Columns.Add("ID", typeof(int));
table2.Columns.Add("ParentID", typeof(int));
table2.Columns.Add("Value", typeof(int));
table2.Columns.Add("Check", typeof(bool));
int parentId = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
{
    table2.Rows.Add(i, parentId, rand.Next(5), false);
    parentId++;
    if (parentId == 5)
    {
        parentId = 0;
    }
}

DataSet set = new DataSet();
set.Tables.Add(table);
set.Tables.Add(table2);
set.Relations.Add(new DataRelation("rel1", table.Columns[0], table2.Columns[1]));

gridView.AutoGenerateHierarchy = true;
gridView.DataMember = "Data1";
gridView.DataSource = set;

I hope this helps. If this is still not your case, I would kindly ask you for additional details. This will allow us to provide you with an adequate response and improve our documentation accordingly.

Greetings,
Julian Benkov
the Telerik team

[Don]

'setup the master template columns

entityIDColumn.DecimalPlaces = 0

entityIDColumn.IsVisible = False

Me.grdSearchResults.MasterTemplate.Columns.Add(entityIDColumn)

 

nameColumn.HeaderText = "Name"

Me.grdSearchResults.MasterTemplate.Columns.Add(nameColumn)

 

dobColumn.FormatString = "{0: MM/dd/yyyy}"

dobColumn.TextAlignment = ContentAlignment.MiddleCenter

dobColumn.HeaderText = "Date of Birth"

Me.grdSearchResults.MasterTemplate.Columns.Add(dobColumn)

 

'Expands column widths equally to fill the grid

Me.grdSearchResults.MasterTemplate.AutoSizeColumnsMode = GridViewAutoSizeColumnsMode.Fill

 

'EnableGrouping is set to True by default and we didn't want grouping

Me.grdSearchResults.EnableGrouping = False

 

'setup the child template columns

eIDColumn.DecimalPlaces = 0

eIDColumn.IsVisible = False

template.Columns.Add(eIDColumn)

 

matterIDColumn.DecimalPlaces = 0

matterIDColumn.IsVisible = False

template.Columns.Add(matterIDColumn)

 

caseNumberColumn.HeaderText = "Case Number"

template.Columns.Add(caseNumberColumn)

 

dateColumn.HeaderText = "Date"

dateColumn.FormatString = "{0: MM/dd/yyyy}"

dateColumn.TextAlignment = ContentAlignment.MiddleCenter

template.Columns.Add(dateColumn)

 

roleColumn.HeaderText = "Role"

template.Columns.Add(roleColumn)

 

topCountColumn.HeaderText = "Top Count"

template.Columns.Add(topCountColumn)

 

caseStatusColumn.HeaderText = "Case Status"

template.Columns.Add(caseStatusColumn)

 

caseTypeColumn.HeaderText = "Case Type"

template.Columns.Add(caseTypeColumn)

 

'Expands column widths equally to fill the grid

template.AutoSizeColumnsMode = GridViewAutoSizeColumnsMode.Fill

 

'Adds child template to the Templates collection of the Master template

Me.grdSearchResults.MasterTemplate.Templates.Add(template)

 

'grdSearchResults Relation definition

radRelation = New GridViewRelation(Me.grdSearchResults.MasterTemplate, template)

radRelation.RelationName = "EntityMatter"

radRelation.ParentColumnNames.Add("EntityID")

radRelation.ChildColumnNames.Add("EntityID")

Me.grdSearchResults.Relations.Add(radRelation)

 

Me.grdSearchResults.AutoGenerateHierarchy = False 'True didn't work when setting the DataMember to t_Entity


Me.grdSearchResults.DataSource = mDataSet

Me.grdSearchResults.MasterTemplate.DataSource = mDataSet.Tables("t_Entity")

template.DataSource = mDataSet.Tables("t_Matter")

This is what I ended up doing to get my hierarchy to work. I had tried setting the DataMember to my t_Entity table and setting AutoGenerateHierarchy to True, but it did not generate the child relations. So I set the DataSources for the templates directly to the tables used in the Relation, set AutoGenerateHierarchy to False and it worked.

The comments are for me when I go back and look at this in six months so I can see what I was thinking at the time.

[Julian Benkov]

Hi Don,

I am glad to hear that you have solved your issue.

This is another way to setup hierarchy using manually added GridViewTemplates and Relations and not using the AutoGenerateHierarchy property.

All the best,

Julian Benkov
the Telerik team

[Zadros]

I am using a DataSet with two DataTables, I created a relation between them but when I see the GridView the main records dont have children.

DataTable oMovs = this.pagos.Clone();
oMovs.TableName = "movimientos";
DataTable oDeps = this.pagos.Clone();
oDeps.TableName = "dependientes";

// Code to split the information from a single DataTable

DataSet oDataSet = new DataSet();
oDataSet.Tables.Add(oMovs);
oDataSet.Tables.Add(oDeps);
oDataSet.Relations.Add(new DataRelation("depende", oMovs.Columns["movimientoContratoDetalleID"]
    , oDeps.Columns["movimientoOrigenID"]));

this.radPagos.AutoGenerateHierarchy = true;
this.radPagos.DataMember = "movimientos";
this.radPagos.DataSource = oDataSet;

I have tried using a GridViewTemplate and a GridViewRelation, tried setting AutoGenerateHierarchy to false and assigning the DataSource directly (it throws an error of null argument, dont know why) and nothing seems to work.
The GridView has a group but I removed it and it still won't associate the parents with their children.
Any suggestion? Am I missing something?

[Don]

I had to explicitly create a GridViewRelation even though my dataset had a relation defined within it.

[Julian Benkov]

Hi Zadros,

You can try to manually setup the hierarchy for your scenario like Don suggested:

DataTable oMovs = this.pagos.Clone();
oMovs.TableName = "movimientos";
DataTable oDeps = this.pagos.Clone();
oDeps.TableName = "dependientes";

// Code to split the information from a single DataTable

DataSet oDataSet = new DataSet();
oDataSet.Tables.Add(oMovs);
oDataSet.Tables.Add(oDeps);
oDataSet.Relations.Add(new DataRelation("depende", oMovs.Columns["movimientoContratoDetalleID"]
    , oDeps.Columns["movimientoOrigenID"]));

this.radPagos.AutoGenerateHierarchy = false;
this.radPagos.DataSource = oMovs;

GridViewTemplate template = new GridViewTemplate();
template.DataSource = oDeps;
this.radPagos.Templates.Add(template);

GridViewRelation relation = new GridViewRelation(this.radPagos.MasterTemplate, template);
relation.ParentColumnNames.Add("movimientoContratoDetalleID");
relation.ChildColumnNames.Add("movimientoOrigenID");
relation.RelationName = "MovsDeps";
this.radPagos.Relations.Add(relation);

I hope you find this information useful. Let me know if you need further assistance.

Regards,
Julian Benkov
the Telerik team