Converting Collection to Dataset

Arunava Bhattacharjee
10y
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Introduction

I saw there is always a need to convert a list to a dataset and then bind it to a datagrid. To make it reusable I used the C# extension method feature.

Solution

We first check to make sure a list is provided or we throw an ArgumentNullException (in the overloaded constructor we also check for the name parameter). Here’s how the two constructors look:

public static DataSet ConvertToDataSet<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, string name)
{
if (source == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException("source ");
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(name))
throw new ArgumentNullException("name");
var converted = new DataSet(name);
converted.Tables.Add(NewTable(name, source));
return converted;
}

Where Name= Name of the DataTable to be added to the DataSet.

Let’s have a look of the NewTable method:

private static DataTable NewTable<T>(string name, IEnumerable<T> list)
{
PropertyInfo[] propInfo = typeof(T).GetProperties();
DataTable table = Table<T>(name, list, propInfo);
IEnumerator<T> enumerator = list.GetEnumerator();
while (enumerator.MoveNext())
table.Rows.Add(CreateRow<T>(table.NewRow(), enumerator.Current, propInfo));
return table;
}

Here’s how CreateRow looks like:

private static DataRow CreateRow<T>(DataRow row, T listItem, PropertyInfo[] pi)
{
foreach (PropertyInfo p in pi)
row[p.Name.ToString()] = p.GetValue(listItem, null);
return row;
}

and the Table<T> method used in NewTable method:

private static DataTable Table<T>(string name, IEnumerable<T> list, PropertyInfo[] pi)
{
DataTable table = new DataTable(name);
foreach (PropertyInfo p in pi)
table.Columns.Add(p.Name, p.PropertyType);
return table;
}

Use

So now lets take a look at using this to convert a Generic list into a DataSet. In this example we will create a simple Generic list which will contain only 2 items, we will then use the Extension we created to convert the list into a DataSet: