Display Grouping in Repeater or DataList

[IT4EVR]

I would like to know how to represent groups of data in a repeater and/or datalist.

From what I understand these controls do not intrinsically come with this functionality. How would I go about this and would it be better/easier to use the repeater or datalist for this purpose?

The data is basically read-only. I do not have to edit anything. This page is basically serving as a report.

I want to be able to group on a field called ReportMonth, which concatenates the month and year of the incident reported.

 

[jbenson001]

If it is just a report, and no editing needed, how about using the built in Crystal Reports to show your data. Much easier to do grouping etc in there.

Jim

 

[IT4EVR]

They don't allow Crystal Reports right now, so I have to go with the datalist,datagrid or repeater.

 

[jbenson001]

If you are using 2.0 you could use master/details forms with a gridview and detailsview.

 

[JGALEY]

Here's a simple way to show group headers that works well for me:

<asp:datalist id="dlJobs" runat="server">
					<itemtemplate>
						<%# DisplayHeaderIfNeeded(Container.DataItem("LOCName")) %>
						<asp:hyperlink id=hylCurrentJobs runat="server" font-size="8pt" navigateurl='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "JOBUID") %>' width="124px">
							<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "JOBTitle") %>
						</asp:hyperlink>
					</itemtemplate>
				</asp:datalist>

And, the function in the code-behind file:

Function DisplayHeaderIfNeeded(ByVal header As String) As String
        Dim output As String = String.Empty

        ' determine if this header has yet to be displayed
        If header <> strLastHeader Then
            ' set the LastHeader to the current header
            strLastHeader = header

            ' display the header name
            output = "<br><font class=GroupHeader>" & header & "</font><br />"
        End If

        Return output

    End Function

Maybe this can help you...

Jason

http://www.catotek.com

 

[JGALEY]

I should point out that the field names bound to the datalist control (like "JOBTitle," for example) are from a datareader used to populate a dataview or datatable, which is then bound to the datalist via a databind command.

I hope this information is helpful to you. There may be better ways, but this has worked well for me...

Jason

http://www.catotek.com

 

[IT4EVR]

Galey, I haven't tried this one yet, but does this actually group the data as well?

What I mean is that I would have something like this:

               Subsystem  Downtime  %Availability
January 2004   server1      2.40          99.65%
               server2      3.00          99.67%

Total Downtime 5.40 hours

March 2004     server1      5.65          95.65%
               server6      3.00          99.67%

Total Downtime 8.65 hours

 

[IT4EVR]

What's the deal with this strLastHeader, I don't see any initialization for it in the code. It's just comparing it to another string later in the code. It's giving me an error.

 

[IT4EVR]

I found a good source online that would be able to give me what I need.

If anyone else is interested in this URL, here it is:

http://dotnetjunkies.com/Article/4365153F-D2F5-4C77-9FE7-94DD1AAF6F98.dcik

It's a great working example.

 

[JGALEY]

Oops, the strLastHeader was declared and set to " " at the instance level - forgot about that part of the code.

Glad you found something that will work for you.

Jason

http://www.catotek.com

 

[IT4EVR]

Yes, this is a very robust solution. They are basically subclassing the standard repeater control, extending it so that it provides grouping headers and grouping totals.