Introduction
There are a lot of methods in the Internet solving the problem of how to merge GridView
rows if neighboring cells show equal values. My approach is not the first; however, I think, it is rather universal and very short - less than 20 lines of code.
The algorithm is simple: to bypass all the rows, starting from the second at the bottom, to the top. If a cell value is the same as a value in the previous (lower) row, then increase RowSpan
and make the lower cell invisible, and so forth.
The code that merges the cells is very short:
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public class GridDecorator { public static void MergeRows(GridView gridView) { for (int rowIndex = gridView.Rows.Count - 2; rowIndex >= 0; rowIndex--) { GridViewRow row = gridView.Rows[rowIndex]; GridViewRow previousRow = gridView.Rows[rowIndex + 1]; for (int i = 0; i < row.Cells.Count; i++) { if (row.Cells[i].Text == previousRow.Cells[i].Text) { row.Cells[i].RowSpan = previousRow.Cells[i].RowSpan < 2 ? 2 : previousRow.Cells[i].RowSpan + 1; previousRow.Cells[i].Visible = false; } } } } }
The last action is to add an OnPreRender
event handler for the GridView
:
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protected void gridView_PreRender(object sender, EventArgs e) { GridDecorator.MergeRows(gridView); }