DataTable to Html

[Bob Weiner]

This is most likely a trivial question but I'm having a hard time finding an
example.

I am writing a script using C# 1.1 which iterates over AD accounts and
builds a DataTable for those with passwords expiring within various periods
of time. After sending mail to the users, I want to send a report to the
help desk with a table of users included. It seems to me that the easiest
way to do it is to convert the DataTable to HTML.

Although there are hundreds of examples available online, they all focus on
ASP or DataBinding with windows forms - neither of which I am interested in.
Of course, I can iterate through the rows of the DataTable and manually
create the HTML (which isn't too painful) but it seems that I'm missing
something important. I tried converting it to the System.Web.HtmlTable but
even that wouldn't spit out the HTML I'm looking for.

Any pointers?

Thanks, bob

[Chris Priede]

Bob Weiner wrote:

It seems to me that the easiest way to do it is to convert the DataTable
to HTML. Of course, I can iterate through the rows of the
DataTable and manually create the HTML
....which is probably what I'd do in your particular situation. :)
I tried converting it to the System.Web.HtmlTable but even that wouldn't
spit out the HTML I'm looking for.

There are two options I can see, if you want something cooler than a big fat
string.Format() line with embedded HTML:

1) You can create a System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataGrid, DataBind() it, and
call RenderControl() to get the HTML output (as described here:
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/091102-1.aspx ). This is what you
said you didn't want to do -- but I suspect it is simpler than you thought
when you wrote that. Although you'd make use of a webcontrol, the use of
this method isn't limited to ASP.NET webpages.

2) You can write out the datatable as XML and apply XSL transform to get the
desired HTML output. System.Xml.Xsl namespace has everything you need to do
this. This method is very flexible and arguably elegant, but somewhat more
complicated than the webcontrol approach (and a lot more complicated than
the big fat string.Format()).
--
Chris Priede

[Bob Weiner]

Thanks!

I thought I was missing something huge but I guess not. I will try method
one for instructive purposes. The second method seems like overkill though
when I get around to playing with xml I may try it, too.

bob
"Chris Priede" <pr****@panix.com> wrote in message
news:eJ**************@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

Bob Weiner wrote:

It seems to me that the easiest way to do it is to convert the DataTable
to HTML. Of course, I can iterate through the rows of the
DataTable and manually create the HTML

...which is probably what I'd do in your particular situation. :)

I tried converting it to the System.Web.HtmlTable but even that wouldn't
spit out the HTML I'm looking for.

There are two options I can see, if you want something cooler than a big
fat string.Format() line with embedded HTML:

1) You can create a System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataGrid, DataBind() it, and
call RenderControl() to get the HTML output (as described here:
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/091102-1.aspx ). This is what
you said you didn't want to do -- but I suspect it is simpler than you
thought when you wrote that. Although you'd make use of a webcontrol, the
use of this method isn't limited to ASP.NET webpages.

2) You can write out the datatable as XML and apply XSL transform to get
the desired HTML output. System.Xml.Xsl namespace has everything you need
to do this. This method is very flexible and arguably elegant, but
somewhat more complicated than the webcontrol approach (and a lot more
complicated than the big fat string.Format()).
--
Chris Priede