Programmatically create ItemTemplate using Reflection and POCO

[Arni Gunnar Ragnarsson]

Hi.

I have a large system we are developing constantly which displays around 100 lists throughout the system. We have set up a configuration system for the lists, and 1 user control to handle them all.

All our datasources are custom classes.

When I need to combine two different properties of the class into 1 column, things get a bit tricky.

Example of a custom class:

public class Master {
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public Child FirstChild { get; set; }
}

public class Child {
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

Using reflection I can access the values of the Master class easily. This is the databind event of the custom ItemTemplate class:

void control_DataBinding(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    LiteralControl control = (LiteralControl)sender;
    GridDataItem container = (GridDataItem)control.NamingContainer;
    control.Text = dataItem.GetType().GetProperty("Name").GetValue(dataItem, null).ToString();
}

But when I need values from the Child class, things get tricky. I have tried all methods thinkable to me, and am stuck with this.

Can anyone show me how I can access the values from the Child class?

[BaiH]

Did you try using DataBinder.Eval? Here is an example:

var container = (GridDataItem) control.NamingContainer;
var value = (string)DataBinder.Eval(container.DataItem, "FirstChild.Name");

--BH