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Binding a Dictionary to a DataGridView?

I'm trying to make a simple test application that will display the contents of a Dictionary in a DataGridView. Not sure if it's possible or what I need to add.

Say I have a simple class to store some data:

    class Myclass
    {
        private string fn;
        private string comment;
        public string Fn
        {
          get { return fn; }
          set { fn = value; }
        }
        public string Comment
        {
          get { return comment; }
          set { comment = value; }
        }
    }

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(I think there's a shorter method of declaring these get/set pairs but I forget how it's done. Do you know how to shorten this?)

And then I have a dictionary containing some members of my class

            Dictionary<string, Myclass> mydic = new Dictionary<string, Myclass>();
            var d1 = new Myclass();
            d1.Fn = "Hello World";
            d1.Comment = "A Comment #1";
            mydic.Add("key1", d1);

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Now I think I want to bind this dictionary to my DataGridView so I can see what's in the dictionary, but I'm not sure how to do this in Visual Studio (or manually for that matter).

dimaj

Why use a dictionary? Why don't you just use a List<Myclass>. Then, do a data binding that would bind your list to your data grid.

If not, you can always resort to using Linq.

morgulo

I think, You must create list grid.DataSource = new List<Myclass>(mydic.Values) and bind datasource every time dictionary changes or every time you want to see dictionary.

deleyd

ASKER

OK so no direct binding to Dictionary? A dictionary (hash table) would be the ideal for storing this data, since it would allow quick random access to records by key. But to display the records,? Any samples of code showing how to display all the data records?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Miguel Oz

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