Select a row in an asp:GridView without using a Select Command
ASP.Net's GridViews can be quite useful, but beware of binding them to huge datasets as this has an overhead on the ViewState.
Often you'll want to display a number of columns on each line and row space becomes an issue. What's worse is you then have to create a SELECT command button to be able to access that line's data.
<asp:CommandField ShowInsertButton="true" />
Use the following code on the event OnRowDataBound to eliminate the need for the SELECT command field and save yourself some valuable space.
Here is the HTML to create a GridView, I'm displaying a list of people, and the key for each record is the PERSON_ID.
<asp:GridView ID="PeopleGridView" runat="server"
AutoGenerateColumns="False"
DataKeyNames="PERSON_ID"
DataSourceID="PeopleDataObject"
Width="200px"
OnRowDataBound="PeopleGridView_RowDataBound"
AllowPaging="True">
<Columns>
<asp:BoundField
DataField="USER_NAME"
HeaderText="Name"
SortExpression="USER_NAME" >
</asp:BoundField>
</Columns>
</asp:GridView>
The key event to note is the OnRowDataBound, use the following code to create SELECT functionality on the row.
protected void PeopleGridView_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow)
{
e.Row.Attributes["onmouseover"] = "this.style.cursor='hand';this.style.textDecoration='underline';";
e.Row.Attributes["onmouseout"] = "this.style.textDecoration='none';";
e.Row.Attributes["onclick"] = ClientScript.GetPostBackClientHyperlink(this.PeopleGridView, "Select$" + e.Row.RowIndex);
}
}
Each row will then behave like a link, and when you select one it can drive the behavior of another control(s) on your page, possibly a DetailsView allowing you to INSERT a complete record to the database.