I need to display data from a database in a html table. I am currently using a ListView control.
I want the final HTML table to render something like the following, where some rows have a rowspan
attribute greater than one. The reason for this is that some fields have several rows of information, but correspond to the same logical entry.
For example:
|---------|---------|----------|----------|
| data | data |data | data |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
|---------|---------|----------|----------|
| data | data |data | data |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
|---------|---------|----------|----------|
| data | data |data | data |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
| | |----------| |
| | |data | |
|---------|---------|----------|----------|
What is the easiest way to accomplish this in ASP.net?
Not too elegant solution for ListView
. The main idea is to use Repeater
inside the ListView
and bind all the sub-data(I mean data from the third column in your example) except the first record to it.
<asp:ListView runat="server" ID="lstData">
<LayoutTemplate>
<table>
<asp:PlaceHolder runat="server" ID="itemPlaceholder" />
</table>
</LayoutTemplate>
<ItemTemplate>
<tr>
<td <%# GetRowspan((int)Eval("Data.Length")) %>>
<%# Eval("FirstName") %>
</td>
<td <%# GetRowspan((int)Eval("Data.Length")) %>>
<%# Eval("LastName") %>
</td>
<td>
<%# GetFirst((IEnumerable<string>)Eval("Data")) %>
</td>
<td <%# GetRowspan((int)Eval("Data.Length")) %>>
<%# Eval("Country") %>
</td>
</tr>
<asp:Repeater runat="server"
DataSource=<%# GetRest((IEnumerable<string>)Eval("Data")) %>>
<ItemTemplate>
<tr>
<td>
<%# Container.DataItem %>
</td>
</tr>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:Repeater>
</ItemTemplate>
</asp:ListView>
and code behind:
public override void DataBind()
{
var item1 = new { FirstName = "John", LastName = "Doe",
Data = new[] { "first", "second", "third" }, Country = "US" };
var item2 = new { FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Doe",
Data = new string[] { }, Country = "CA" };
var item3 = new { FirstName = "Joe", LastName = "Public",
Data = new[] { "first", "second", "third", "fourth" }, Country = "US" };
lstData.DataSource = new[] { item1, item2, item3 };
lstData.DataBind();
}
protected string GetRowspan(int length)
{
if (length == 0)
return string.Empty;
else
return string.Format("rowspan='{0}'", length);
}
protected string GetFirst(IEnumerable<string> data)
{
return data.FirstOrDefault();
}
protected IEnumerable<string> GetRest(IEnumerable<string> data)
{
if (data.Any())
return data.Skip(1);
else
return Enumerable.Empty<string>();
}
this outputs data in the format you want.
But if the usage of ListView
is not necessary you could take a look onto GridView
. There is more elegant way to do this by using it - ASP.NET GridView RowSpan using RowCreated Event - How to add Table Dynamic RowSpan with GridView article.
protected override void RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter output)
{
var builder = new StringBuilder();
builder.Append("<table>");
for(int i=0;i<dt1.rows.count;i++)
{
builder.Append("<tr>");
builder.Append("<td>");
builder.Append(dt1.rows[i].ToString());
builder.Append("</td>");
builder.Append("<td>");
builder.Append(dt1.rows[i].ToString());
builder.Append("</td>");
builder.Append("</td>");
builder.Append("<table>");
builder.Append("<tr>");
for(int j=0;i<dt2.rows.count;j++)
{
builder.Append("<td>");builder.Append(dt2.rows[j].ToString());
builder.Append("</td>");
}
builder.Append("</tr>");
builder.Append("</table>");
builder.Append("</tr>");
}
builder.Append("</table>");
output.Write(builder.ToString());
}
assume that dt1 as table1 and dt2 as inner table ...
so approach will help u out ...