What is the DataField Name of a GridView bound to a String Array?

This is a special case that I don’t remember experiencing before but resolved with the help of a StackOverflow question Binding an ASP.NET GridView Control to a string array.

In a simple Asp.Net Membership management application I was simply binding a Role list to a GridView so I could click a link to see which users were members of a selected Role. I was using the following syntax in the CodeBehind where grvRoles is the GridView:

grvRoles.DataSource = Roles.GetAllRoles

grvRoles.DataBind()

Note: Roles.GetAllRoles() is in the System.Web.Security namespace which returns a string array of Roles from the aspnetdb Membership Database.

On the Designer:

<asp:GridView ID="grvRoles" runat="server" 

    EnableModelValidation="True">

    <Columns>

        <asp:CommandField ShowSelectButton="True" />

    </Columns>

</asp:GridView>

Which produced the following output with the GridView auto-generated columns. Notice the column name is “Item”, but the datasource is a string array which doesn’t technically have a DataField name like if it was bound to a Generic List or Collection of class objects.

I want to use a LinkButton where the CommandArgument is the Role name which is represented as a String value of the array. So If I convert the “Select” Command button column to a Template field, what do I use as the DataField name? Generally I would use the syntax:

<asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" 

    EnableModelValidation="True">

    <Columns>

    <asp:TemplateField ShowHeader="False">

        <ItemTemplate>

            <asp:LinkButton ID="lnkMembers" 

                runat="server" CausesValidation="False"

                CommandArgument='<%#Eval("Item") %>' 

                CommandName="Select" Text="Members"></asp:LinkButton>

        </ItemTemplate>

    </asp:TemplateField>

</Columns>

</asp:GridView>

 

Note the CommandArgument=’<%#Eval(“Item”) %>’, but that won’t work, because the String Array doesn’t actually have an Item property. Instead you can use the longhand syntax: CommandArgument='<%# container.dataitem %>'.

 

If I don’t want to have the GridView auto-generate the columns, what do I use for the asp:BoundField name? Apparently there is a secret syntax by using an exclamation point <asp:BoundField DataField="!" HeaderText="Role" />.