Software Technology Tips

DataTable class in .Net supports the calculation of a column by getting the values from other columns.

That means lets say I have a DataTable as dtItems which is having three columns ItemName, Price, Quantity ,if I need to add another column as Total and the calculated value for this column will be Price* Quantity , this can be done easily without looping through all the rows, it will be automatically calculated during runtime " dtItems.Columns.Add("Total", typeof(int), "Price*Quantity"); ".

Code:

DataTable dtItems = new DataTable();

//Add three columns to the DataTable

dtItems.Columns.Add("ItemName", typeof(string));

dtItems.Columns.Add("Price", typeof(int));

dtItems.Columns.Add("Quantity", typeof(int));

//Add rows to the DataTable

dtItems.Rows.Add("Item1", 100, 1);

dtItems.Rows.Add("Item2", 200, 2);

dtItems.Rows.Add("Item3", 300, 3);
 

//Add a new Column with the Calculate Value

dtItems.Columns.Add("Total", typeof(int), "Price*Quantity");

//Set the DataTable as DataSource of the GridView

grdItemsList.DataSource = dtItems;