Is there a “sister” function to “AutoFilter” in Ex

Question

The "AutoFilter" function in Excel Interop allows you to filter what data in the rows beneath a column display.

I need a similar function to allow the user to select which columns to hide. For example and specifically, if there is a set of columns 3..15 (C..0) going from "Sep 15" to "Sep 16" with the obvious months in between them ("Oct 15", etc.) I want the user to be able to select any subset of those columns to view. Those deselected would "disappear"

How can this be accomplished?

I have tried the following, but the second filter has no effect:

private void AddFilters()
{
    Range column1Row6 = _xlSheet.Range[_xlSheet.Cells[6, 1], _xlSheet.Cells[6, 1]];
    column1Row6.AutoFilter(1,
            Type.Missing,
            XlAutoFilterOperator.xlAnd,
            Type.Missing,
            true);

    // Try to filter columns, too (not the contents, but which columns display)
    Range columns3And4 = _xlSheet.Range[_xlSheet.Cells[6, 3], _xlSheet.Cells[6, 15]];
    columns3And4.AutoFilter(1,
            Type.Missing,
            XlAutoFilterOperator.xlAnd,
            Type.Missing,
            true);
}

Is this possible?

UPDATE

Looking at some legacy code, it would seem that this code does it:

var fld = ((PivotField) pvt.PivotFields("Month"));
fld.Orientation = XlPivotFieldOrientation.xlColumnField;
fld.NumberFormat = "MMM yy";

Specifically, setting the orientation of the PivotField to xlColumnField causes the column to sport the sort/filter button that, when manipulated, conditionally shows/hides various columns. Does it determine which columns are showable/hideable based on the number format? That is to say, if the value is "Sep 15" or "Oct 16" it is a candidate for hiding/reshowing? I don't know, but I can't see anything else in the code that is more specifically setting the limits of the column filtering.

For a little more context:

var pch = _xlBook.PivotCaches();
pch.Add(XlPivotTableSourceType.xlDatabase, "PivotData!A1:H" + rowIdx).CreatePivotTable(_xlSheet.Cells[6, 1], "PivTab1", Type.Missing, Type.Missing);

var pvt = _xlSheet.PivotTables("PivTab1") as PivotTable;
if (pvt != null)
{
    pvt.MergeLabels = true;
    pvt.ErrorString = "";
    pvt.DisplayErrorString = true;

    var fld = ((PivotField) pvt.PivotFields("Description"));
    fld.Orientation = XlPivotFieldOrientation.xlRowField;

    fld = ((PivotField) pvt.PivotFields("Month"));
    fld.Orientation = XlPivotFieldOrientation.xlColumnField;
    fld.NumberFormat = "MMM yy";
    . . .

Answer 1

I don't think there is such functionality, but similar can be achieved using PivotTables.

I still have work to do on getting it all to look decent, but I did find out how to create a column filter, based on an answer here.

With the following code:

var pch = _xlBook.PivotCaches();
// TODO: Make range dynamic
Range sourceData = _xlBook.Worksheets["PivotData"].Range["A1:G318"];

PivotCache pc = pch.Create(XlPivotTableSourceType.xlDatabase, sourceData);
PivotTable pvt = pc.CreatePivotTable(_xlPivotTableSheet.Range["A8"], "PivotTable");

pvt.PivotFields("Description").Orientation = XlPivotFieldOrientation.xlRowField;
pvt.PivotFields("MonthYr").Orientation = XlPivotFieldOrientation.xlColumnField;

...I can take the source data from one sheet ("PivotData") and slap it on another sheet (_xlPivotTableSheet). The part that gives me the "filter a set of columns" functionality is the last line above. That leaves me with the following:

Though you cannot see it, there is a column "201509" as well as the "201510", and they can be filtered to display or not, individually or collectively.

Now to get the rest of the data to display as it should...