Question - Describe the DataView in ADO.NET?
Answer -
A DataView enables you to create different views of the data stored in a DataTable, a capability that is often used in data binding applications. Using a DataView, you can expose the data in a table with different sort orders, and you can filter the data by row state or based on a filter expression. A DataView provides a dynamic view of data whose content, ordering, and membership reflect changes to the underlying DataTable as they occur. This is different from the Select method of the DataTable, which returns a DataRow array from a table per particular filter and/or sort order and whose content reflects changes to the underlying table, but whose membership and ordering remain static. The dynamic capabilities of the DataView make it ideal for data-binding applications.
How we can create a DataView
There are two ways to create a DataView. You can use the DataView constructor, or you can create a reference to the DefaultView property of the DataTable. The DataView constructor can be empty, or will also take either a DataTable as a single argument, or a DataTable along with filter criteria, sort criteria, and a row state filter.
- DataView custDV = new DataView(customerDS.Tables["Customers"],
- "Country = 'USA'",
- "ContactName",
- DataViewRowState.CurrentRows);
- DataView custDV = customerDS.Tables["Customers"].DefaultView;