Set DataFormatString on DataGridView at Runtime?

Question

Is it possible to set the DataFormatString property of a column or cell in an ASP.NET DataGridView at runtime?

Answer 1

There doesn't seem to be a way to set the DataFormatString property. I have ended up binding the datasource to the table and then going through all the cells and formatting them manually:

DataGridView.AutoGenerateColumns = true;
DataGridView.DataSource = dbconnection.getDataReader();
DataGridView.DataBind();

int result;

for (int i = 0; i < DataGridView.Rows.Count; i++)
{
  foreach (TableCell c in DataGridView.Rows[i].Cells)
  {
    if (int.TryParse(c.Text, out result))
    {
      c.Text = String.Format("{0:n0}", result);
    }
  }
}

This method works perfectly for me. Not sure how it would scale up with a large dataset although my guess is it would be fine.

Answer 2

This should work.

BoundField priceField = grid.Columns[0] as BoundField;
priceField.DataFormatString = "{0:c}";
priceField.HtmlEncode = false;
grid.DataSource = list;
grid.DataBind();

Found via http://geekswithblogs.net/michelotti/archive/2006/03/30/73896.aspx

Answer 3

Not that I know of, you might want to try peforming the column formatting on RowDataBound event though might have some performance degrade. Will be glad if someone can provide a simpler method.