asp.net - Conditionally hide CommandField or ButtonField in Gridview

Question

I have a GridView displaying person records. I want to conditionally show a CommandField or ButtonField based on some property of the underlying record. The idea is to only allow a command to be performed on specific people.

What is the best way to do this? I'd prefer a declarative solution to a procedural one.

Answer 1

First, convert your ButtonField or CommandField to a TemplateField, then bind the Visible property of the button to a method that implements the business logic:

<asp:GridView runat="server" ID="GV1" AutoGenerateColumns="false">
    <Columns>
        <asp:BoundField DataField="Name" HeaderText="Name" />
        <asp:BoundField DataField="Age" HeaderText="Age" />
        <asp:TemplateField>
            <ItemTemplate>
                <asp:Button runat="server" Text="Reject" 
                Visible='<%# IsOverAgeLimit((Decimal)Eval("Age")) %>' 
                CommandName="Select"/>
            </ItemTemplate>
        </asp:TemplateField>
    </Columns>
</asp:GridView>

Then, in the code behind, add in the method:

protected Boolean IsOverAgeLimit(Decimal Age) {
    return Age > 35M;
}

The advantage here is you can test the IsOverAgeLimit method fairly easily.