Working with DataGridViewRow.DataBoundItem - transform to Enumerable Object?

Question

I have a DataGridView with

myGridView.DataSource = GetSomeData()


// method called
public IQueryable GetSomeData()
{
    var source = from r in records
                 select r;

    return source;    // made correction from 'r' to 'source'
}

GetSomeData() fills the DataGridView as expected. The user will select a row to edit which then passes the row data to a form. Since the DataGridViewRow.DataBoundItem is an anonymous type, how can I pass DataBoundItem?

I half expected that my DataBoundItem would be IQueryable - incorrect. Here is the info from the debugger on the DataBoundItem property:

DataBoundItem { CustomerID = "3133", Last_Name = "Smith", First_Name = "John", AccountNumber = "JS3133", ActiveYN = True } < Anonymous Type >

Once the data is passed to the new form, I would like to do something like:

txtFName.Text = SomeEnumeratedObject["First_Name"];
txtLName.Text = SomeEnumeratedObject["Last_Name"];

Any ideas on how I can do this? It would be even better, IMO, if the controls on the new form could some how be bound to SomeEnumeratedObject.

Would it possible to query the DataBoundItem with LINQ?

Edit:

Changed method:

public DataView GetSomeData()
{
    var source = from r in records
                 select r;

    DataTable table = ToDataTable(myContext, source);
    return new DataView(table);
}

See complete solution here.

Answer 1

You could pass it as dynamic and access the properties that way:

public void Test(dynamic item)
{
    MessageBox.Show(string.Format("{0} : {1}", item.First_Name, item.Last_Name));
    textBox1.DataBindings.Add("Text", _item, "First_Name");
    textBox2.DataBindings.Add("Text", _item, "Last_Name");
}

One thing to consider is that properties on anonymous types are read only, so your user will not be able to edit the values that way. From the C# Language Spec:

The members of an anonymous type are a sequence of read-only properties inferred from the anonymous object initializer used to create an instance of the type.

You should consider declaring a type for this instead of using an anonymous type. That way you'll also get the benefit of intellisense and be able to rename/refactor your properties without any problems.

Answer 2

What type of objects are in records? You should be able to cast DataGridViewRow.DataBoundItem to whatever type of object records holds.

Say records is a list of Customer objects. You should be able to go:

txtFName.Text = ((Customer)DataGridViewRow.DataBoundItem).First_Name;
txtLName.Text = ((Customer)DataGridViewRow.DataBoundItem).Last_Name; 

If that isn't possible, then I think you will have to use reflection:

Type type = DataGridViewRow.DataBoundItem.GetType();  
String firstName = (String)type.GetProperty("First_Name")
                        .GetValue(DataGridViewRow.DataBoundItem, null);

Answer 3

Both kevev22 & adrift had the right idea: create a class to hold the data. Since I can transform an IQueryable resultset to a DataTable, it only made sense to do that:

public DataView GetSomeData()
{
    var source = from r in records
                 select r;

    DataTable table = ToDataTable(myContext, source);
    return new DataView(table);
}

Now:

myDGView.DataSource = GetSomeData();

And, when a datagrid row is selected, you can cast the DataBoundItem to DataRow.

FYI - to transform an IQueryable resultset to a DataTable:

public DataTable ToDataTable(DataContext context, IQueryable source)
{
    DataTable table = new DataTable();
    {
        adapter.SelectCommand = context.GetCommand(source);
        sqlCommand.Connection.Open();
        adapter.FillSchema(table, SchemaType.Source);
        adapter.Fill(table);
    }

    return table;
}