C# 4 and .NET 4

1134 ❘ ChaPTer 39 windOws fOrms
ilistsource and ilist interfaces
The DataGridView also supports any object that exposes one of the interfaces IListSource or IList.
IListSource has only one method, GetList(), which returns an IList interface. IList, however, is
somewhat more interesting and is implemented by a large number of classes in the runtime. Some of the
classes that implement this interface are Array, ArrayList, and StringCollection.
When using IList, the same caveat for the object within the collection holds true as for the Array
implementation shown earlier — if a StringCollection is used as the data source for the DataGrid, the
length of the strings is displayed within the grid, not within the text of the item as expected.
Displaying Generic Collections
In addition to the types already described, the DataGridView also supports binding to generic collections.
The syntax is just as in the other examples already provided in this chapter — simply set the DataSource
property to the collection, and the control will generate an appropriate display.
Once again, the columns displayed are based on the properties of the object — all public readable fields are
displayed in the DataGridView. The following example shows the display for a list class defined as follows:
class PersonList: List < Person >
{
}
class Person
{
public Person( string name, Sex sex, DateTime dob )
{
_name = name;
_sex = sex;
_dateOfBirth = dob;
}
public string Name
{
get { return _name; }
set { _name = value; }
}
public Sex Sex
{
get { return _sex; }
set { _sex = value; }
}
public DateTime DateOfBirth
{
get { return _dateOfBirth; }
set { _dateOfBirth = value; }
}
}
private string _name;
private Sex _sex;
private DateTime _dateOfBirth;
enum Sex
{
Male,
Female
}
code snippet 03 MainExample/Person.cs
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