Extracting Specific Columns from a DataTable

Question

I have some code in my C# application which extracts data from a SQL database.

This DataTable is used in various places throughout my application, and is displayed in multiple DataGridViews.

However, I want to show only some of the columns in the Datatable, not all of them.

Also the columns I want to display are different in each of the DataGridViews.

e.g.

• Show Columns 1-3 in DataGridView1
• Show Columns 4-6 in DataGridView2
• Show Columns 7-12 in DataGridView3

etc

I could of course just write different code to extract the required fields from SQL for each of the DataGridViews, but this doesn't seem like a very concise solution.

It would be better (I think) if I could use the one DataTable extracted from SQL, and apply multiple filters to it in the application for displaying different Columns in each of the DataGridViews.

I looked at using DataView but whilst this has a Sort method, it doesn't seem to have a Filter method

e.g.

DataTable table = GetDateFromSql();
DataView view = new DataView(table);
view.Sort = "FieldName";

Ideally I'd like to be able to do something like -

view.Filter = "SELECT cola, colB, colC";
myDataGridView.DataSource = view;

I know there is a RowFilter method, but in effect, its the Columns I want to filter.

How can this be done?

Answer 1

You can do something like this:

Similar Question: Showing only selected column in dataview

DataView view = new DataView(table);
DataTable table2 = view.ToTable(false, "FirstColumn", "SecondColumn", "ThirdColumn");

Answer 2

You can set DataGridViewColumn property visible to false, if You dont care about the data in that column. In asp.net web forms You can get the column by its name.