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I have a gridview control that is returning rows where for 1 column the
value is usually the same. Occasionally the last couple of rows will
have a different value for this column. (2 unique values total). Instead
of displaying the same value in this column for every row, I'd like to
be able to merge all the identical values into one cell, similarly to
how I could do it in Excel.

I realise that this may be going way beyond what the Gridview is
supposed to do and if its not possible to do easily then that's fine,
I'll look at other options of providing some visial indication of a
change in that value, but I'm just wondering if this can easily be done
with the gridview (since its spot on for everything else I need it for!)

Here's a rough diagram of the sort of thing I'm looking for:

Col 1 | Col 2 | Col 3 | Col 4 |
------+-------+-------+-------+
| Val 2 | Val 3 | Val 4 |
+-------+-------+-------+
Val 1 | Val 5 | Val 6 | Val 7 |
+-------+-------+-------+
| Val 8 | Val 9 | Val A |
------+-------+-------+-------+
Val B | Val C | Val D | Val E |

The above diagram probably won't look too good if your reader doesn't
have a monospaced font - sorry for that!

Andrew Shaw wrote:
> I have a gridview control that is returning rows where for 1 column
> the value is usually the same. Occasionally the last couple of rows
> will have a different value for this column. (2 unique values total).
> Instead of displaying the same value in this column for every row,
> I'd like to be able to merge all the identical values into one cell,
> similarly to how I could do it in Excel.
>
> I realise that this may be going way beyond what the Gridview is
> supposed to do and if its not possible to do easily then that's fine,
> I'll look at other options of providing some visial indication of a
> change in that value, but I'm just wondering if this can easily be
> done with the gridview (since its spot on for everything else I need
> it for!)
> Here's a rough diagram of the sort of thing I'm looking for:
>
> Col 1 | Col 2 | Col 3 | Col 4 |
> ------+-------+-------+-------+
> | Val 2 | Val 3 | Val 4 |
> +-------+-------+-------+
> Val 1 | Val 5 | Val 6 | Val 7 |
> +-------+-------+-------+
> | Val 8 | Val 9 | Val A |
> ------+-------+-------+-------+
> Val B | Val C | Val D | Val E |
>
> The above diagram probably won't look too good if your reader doesn't
> have a monospaced font - sorry for that!

What you want is called grouping.

Search Google for "gridview grouping", that will give you some samples how
to do it.
Mostly, it is done just by blanking out the doubles, not by merging the
cells.

Merging cells can be done easily, I think. Gridview cells inherit from
TableCell controls, which have a RowSpan property that you can set.
This also requires removing the cells below the one with the extended
rowspan (row.Cells.RemoveAt(0) or something).

Jos

Riki wrote:
> Andrew Shaw wrote:
>> I have a gridview control that is returning rows where for 1 column
>> the value is usually the same. Occasionally the last couple of rows
>> will have a different value for this column. (2 unique values total).
>> Instead of displaying the same value in this column for every row,
>> I'd like to be able to merge all the identical values into one cell,
>> similarly to how I could do it in Excel.
>>
>> I realise that this may be going way beyond what the Gridview is
>> supposed to do and if its not possible to do easily then that's fine,
>> I'll look at other options of providing some visial indication of a
>> change in that value, but I'm just wondering if this can easily be
>> done with the gridview (since its spot on for everything else I need
>> it for!)
>> Here's a rough diagram of the sort of thing I'm looking for:
>>
>> Col 1 | Col 2 | Col 3 | Col 4 |
>> ------+-------+-------+-------+
>> | Val 2 | Val 3 | Val 4 |
>> +-------+-------+-------+
>> Val 1 | Val 5 | Val 6 | Val 7 |
>> +-------+-------+-------+
>> | Val 8 | Val 9 | Val A |
>> ------+-------+-------+-------+
>> Val B | Val C | Val D | Val E |
>>
>> The above diagram probably won't look too good if your reader doesn't
>> have a monospaced font - sorry for that!
>
> What you want is called grouping.
>
> Search Google for "gridview grouping", that will give you some samples how
> to do it.
> Mostly, it is done just by blanking out the doubles, not by merging the
> cells.
>
> Merging cells can be done easily, I think. Gridview cells inherit from
> TableCell controls, which have a RowSpan property that you can set.
> This also requires removing the cells below the one with the extended
> rowspan (row.Cells.RemoveAt(0) or something).
>
> Jos
>
>

Excellent - thanks very much for the tips - I'll go poke Google now!

Andrew