Accessing a Control’s Value from DataGrid in ASP.NET

Introduction

There are many real-world situations in which you might like to access values from a DataGrid that has different server controls in each column, i.e. if you want to create a grid where you can get edit multiple records on one click or do some other work on that data.

Download source code Run Sample

DataGrid

Let us consider a case where we have a DataGrid as shown in Figure 1.

DataGrid with values

We have the following columns in the DataGrid:

Column 1: a bound column that contains names from a datasource.
Column 2: contains a TextBox control, which is bound to an age field of the datasource.
Column 3: contains a CheckBox control, which is bound to an Isgraduate field of the datasource.
Column 4: contains a CheckBoxList control.
Column 5: contains a RadioButtonList control.
Column 6: contains DropDownList control.

Iterating through Rows of a DataGrid

We have to iterate through rows of our DataGrid to get values of controls within that row, so let’s do that first. The DataGrid control has a property called Items, which is a collection of object DataGridItem that represents the individual item in a DataGrid control, and we can use this property to iterate through DataGrid rows by following these six steps.

foreach(DataGridItem dataGridItem in MyDataGrid.Items){ 
				
}

Getting the Value from a Bound Column in DataGrid

//Get name from cell[0] 
String Name = dataGridItem.Cells[0].Text;

Getting the Value of a TextBox Control in DataGrid
Now our second column contains a TextBox control, and we need to get a Text property of that object. We use the FindControl method of the DataGridItem to get a reference for the TextBox.
```
//Get text from textbox in cell[1] 
String Age = 
((TextBox)dataGridItem.FindControl("AgeField")).Text;
```
Getting the Value from CheckBox Control in DataGrid
Our third column in DataGrid contains a CheckBox Web control that we need to check if the Checked property of that control is true or false.
```
//Get Checked property of Checkbox control 
bool IsGraduate = 
((CheckBox)dataGridItem.FindControl
("IsGraduateField")).Checked;
```
Getting the Value from CheckBoxList Web Control in DataGrid
This case differs from the previous one because the CheckBoxList may return more then one value selected. We have to iterate through the CheckBoxList items to check if the user has selected a particular item.
```
// Get Values from CheckBoxList 
String Skills = ""; 
foreach(ListItem item in 

((CheckBoxList)dataGridItem.FindControl("CheckBoxList1")).Items) 
{ 
	if (item.Selected){ 
		Skills += item.Value + ","; 
	} 
} 
Skills = Skills.TrimEnd(',');
```
Getting the Value from a RadioButtonList Web Control in a DataGrid
We use the FindControl method of the DataGridItem to get a reference for RadioButtonList and then the SelectedItem property of the RadioButtonList to get the selected item from RadioButtonList.
```
//Get RadioButtonList Selected text 
String Experience = 
((RadioButtonList)dataGridItem.FindControl("RadioButtonList1"))
    .SelectedItem.Text;
```
Getting the Value from a DropDownList Web Control in a DataGrid
This is similar to a RadioButtonList. I have used this control just to show that it works the same way as any other ListControls. Similarly, you can work with a ListBox Web control as we did with the CheckBoxList control.
```
//Get DropDownList Selected text 
String Degree = 
((DropDownList)dataGridItem.
FindControl("DropDownList1")).SelectedItem.Text;
```

Combining Everything Together

Now that we know how to get the values from each Control, let’s put together the code to display the result of values in each row of the DataGrid.

String Result = ""; 
foreach(DataGridItem dataGridItem in MyDataGrid.Items){ 
	//Get name from cell[0] 
	String Name = dataGridItem.Cells[0].Text; 
	//Get text from textbox in cell[1] 
	String Age = 
((TextBox)dataGridItem.FindControl("AgeField")).Text; 
	//Get Checked property of Checkbox control 
	bool IsGraduate = 
((CheckBox)dataGridItem.FindControl("IsGraduateField")).Checked; 
        // get Values from Checkboxlist 
	String Skills = ""; 
	foreach(ListItem item in ((CheckBoxList)dataGridItem.
FindControl("CheckBoxList1")).Items){ 
		if (item.Selected){ 
			Skills += item.Value + ","; 
		} 
	} 
	Skills = Skills.TrimEnd(','); 
         
	//Get RadioButtonList Selected text 
	String Experience = 
	((RadioButtonList)dataGridItem.
FindControl("RadioButtonList1")).SelectedItem.Text; 
            
	//Get DropDownList Selected text 
	String Degree = 
	((DropDownList)dataGridItem.
FindControl("DropDownList1")).SelectedItem.Text; 
             
	// Build String to show result. 
	Result += Name; 
	Result += " [Age -" + Age + "] "; 
	
	if (IsGraduate){ 
		Result += "Is Graduate , "; 
	}else{ 
		Result += "Is not Graduate , "; 
	} 
    
	Result += "Has Skills[" + Skills + "] , ";    
	Result += "Has " + Experience + " Experience , And " ; 
    	Result += "Has " + Degree + " Degree." ; 
    	Result += ""; 
}