Values Property

Overview

The Values property returns a read-only view of the row current field values. Think of Values as a read-only window into the row. You can look through the window and see changes happen, but you cannot reach through the window to change anything. To change a value, you must modify the actual data row. If the data row is modified, the Values property will reflect the updated data.

The Values property returns dictionary, which uses the column name as the key and the current field value as the value. Values is intended for scenarios where you want to treat a row like a name/value bag: logging, auditing, UI rendering, serialization, or building parameter sets. Use the IDataRow indexer (row["ColumnName"]) to change values.

Namespace and Assembly

Namespace: PocoDataSet.Data
Assembly: PocoDataSet.Data.dll

Usage Example

Enumerate all values and write an audit log entry:

// 1. Create an empty data set
IDataSet dataSet = DataSetFactory.CreateDataSet();

// 2. Create an empty data table
IDataTable employeeDataTable = dataSet.AddNewTable("Employee");
employeeDataTable.AddColumn("Id", DataTypeNames.INT32);
employeeDataTable.AddColumn("FirstName", DataTypeNames.STRING);
employeeDataTable.AddColumn("LastName", DataTypeNames.STRING);
employeeDataTable.AddColumn("IsActive", DataTypeNames.BOOLEAN);

// 3. Create a new row
IDataRow employeeDataRow = employeeDataTable.AddNewRow();
employeeDataRow["Id"] = 1001;
employeeDataRow["FirstName"] = "John";
employeeDataRow["LastName"] = "Smith";
employeeDataRow["IsActive"] = true;

// 4. Iterate over Values to build an audit string
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object?> pair in employeeDataRow.Values)
{
  string valueText = pair.Value == null ? "<null>" : pair.Value.ToString();
  sb.Append(pair.Key);
  sb.Append("=");
  sb.Append(valueText);
  sb.Append("; ");
}

string auditLine = sb.ToString();

Copy the current values into a standalone dictionary (snapshot) for later comparison:

// 1. Create a snapshot dictionary
Dictionary<string, object?> snapshot = new Dictionary<string, object?>(StringComparer.Ordinal);
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, object?> pair in employeeDataRow.Values)
{
  snapshot[pair.Key] = pair.Value;
}

// 2. Modify the row later (Values changes, snapshot does not)
employeeDataRow["LastName"] = "Johnson";

// 3. Compare snapshot vs. current values
object? oldLastName = snapshot["LastName"];
object? newLastName = employeeDataRow["LastName"];

 

Table of Content POCO DataSet API References POCO DataSet Types DataRow Members

 

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Business Process Programming in .Net
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