Any way to manipulate the columns in GridView with AutoGenerateColumns = true?

Question

It seems like there\'s no way to manipulate the columns of a Gridview if AutoGenerateColumns = true. Here\'s my scenario:

I\'ve got a generic GridView that displays

Answer 1

Building on the accepted answer, a dictionary can be created to map from column names to column indicies in the RowDataBound event to allow use of header names. Also a column swap is shown.

Dictionary _columnIndiciesForAbcGridView = null;

protected void detailsReportGridView_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
{
    if (_columnIndiciesForAbcGridView == null)
    {
        int index = 0;
        _columnIndiciesForAbcGridView = ((Table)((GridView)sender).Controls[0]).Rows[0].Cells
            .Cast()
            .ToDictionary(c => c.Text, c => index++);
    }

    // Add a column, this shifts the _columnIndiciesForAbcGridView though.

    TableCell cell = new TableCell();
    cell.Text = "new Column";
    e.Row.Cells.AddAt(2, cell);

    // Swap 0 and 1

    int c0 = _columnIndiciesForAbcGridView["ConfigId"];
    int c1 = _columnIndiciesForAbcGridView["CreatedUtc"];

    string text = e.Row.Cells[c0].Text;
    e.Row.Cells[c0].Text = e.Row.Cells[c1].Text;
    e.Row.Cells[c1].Text = text;
}