Hide certain properties of a class in DataGridView

Question

I know that similar to this question was asked before, but mine is a little bit more different. I tried most of the previously suggested solutions, but none of them work.

So the problem is that I've got two classes as shown:

public class Dog
{
    public String Name { get; set; }
    public int Age{ get; set; }
}
public class Person
{
    public String First_Name { get; set; }
    public String Last_Name { get; set; }
    public Dog dog { get;set;}
}

Also, I have a list of People List < Person > that I am displaying in datagridview. The problem is when I display them I get something like

But what I need is:

The only way I managed to fix it is by returning only the Dog name in the To_String method, but it's not working for me because I need to return both of the name and the dog age.

I hope you understand me and can help me.

Answer 1

I'm surprised by the currently suggested (and even upvoted) answer that suggests creating another list just to change the display representation of a value.

What are you asking is called formatting and is supported by every UI framework/component. See my answer to changing the value of a cell in gridview at runtime for more details.

All you need is to handle CellFormatting event and put inside the handler something like this:

var dog = e.Value as Dog;
if (dog != null)
{
    // Display whatever you like
    e.Value = dog.Name;
    e.FormattingApplied = true;
}

Full sample:

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace Samples
{
    static class Program
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main()
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            var form = new Form();
            var dg = new DataGridView { Dock = DockStyle.Fill, Parent = form };
            dg.CellFormatting += (sender, e) =>
            {
                var dog = e.Value as Dog;
                if (dog != null) { e.Value = dog.Name; e.FormattingApplied = true; }
            };
            dg.DataSource = new[]
            {
                new Person { First_Name = "Ben", Last_Name = "Harison", dog = new Dog { Name = "Billy", Age = 50} },
                new Person { First_Name = "Rob", Last_Name = "Jonson", dog = new Dog { Name = "Puppy", Age = 25} },
            };
            Application.Run(form);
        }
    }

    public class Dog
    {
        public String Name { get; set; }
        public int Age { get; set; }
    }
    public class Person
    {
        public String First_Name { get; set; }
        public String Last_Name { get; set; }
        public Dog dog { get; set; }
    }
}

Result:

Answer 2

You can use Select function from LINQ:

this.datagridview.DataSource=youList.Select(x=>new {x.First_Name,x.Last_Name,Dog=x.Dog.Name}).ToList();