The GridView control has the functionality to allow multiple DataKey values to be assigned to it using the DataKeyNames property. However, the method of retrieving a DataKey that is not the primary key is, for the most part, undocumented. The Values property will allow you to get any DataKey value.

VB.NET
GridView.DataKeys(Index1).Values(Index2)

C#
GridView.DataKeys[Index1].Values[Index2]

Where GridView is the ID of the GridView control, Index1 is the index of the current row in the GridView, and Index2 is the name of the DataKey.

I haven't looked at the documentation in detail or built anything with mukiple keys, but a quick glance at the intellisense for data key names indicates that this at least relates to the primary key.

This leads me to think that this whole area relates to complex (primary) keys, rather than other indexes on the data.

E.g. a child data table might allow only one "name" value per parent, so the primary key is the foreign key value from the parent, plus a unique "name" value in the child table.

Man I thought I knew this one, but I did not.  I am not sure where you need to retrieve the dataitem for the row, but for the RowDataBound event it would look something like this:

vishalsharma wrote:

How do I retrieve a non - primary Data Key value from a Grid View????

The answer is in the first thread to this post.

This syntax works best for me:

 Dim index as integer = e.Row.DataItemIndex

intKey1 = GridView.DataKeys(index).Item(0)

strKey2 = GridView.DataKeys(index).Item(1)

Hello,

This is a very intersting topic as I am working on a project that involves a table of items in which members of that table have relationships to other names in the same table. What would suggest is the best method of dealing with parent-sibling relationships within one table?

I am new to asp but I have my database-dal-bll thing going and need to deal with it programaticaly.

Thanks for the topic!

Lets be a bit more clear

1, john, motherId, fatherId

2, fredy, motherId, fatherId

3, mary, motherId, fatherId

etc.....

all relationships within one table...

Ryan,

Could you please take a minute to elaborate for a newbie? I am having this exact same problem, but I need a little more help than just this line of code please. I'm not sure how to implement this code. Should this be written in the GridView_SelectedIndexChanged event? And then what? How does this second parameter get passed along to the SqlDataSource?

Thanks

Nice topic and well explained. This would be helpful to a lot of readers...

 Okay, am I missing something?  When I try to get the (index1) using the CommandArgument it comes back error converting to Cint. 

Protected Sub gvResults_RowCommand(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridViewCommandEventArgs) Handles gvResults.RowCommand

Server.Transfer("~/myPage.aspx?key=" & gvResults.DataKeys(CInt(e.CommandArgument)).Item(0).toString)

End Sub

PS.  I have option strict and option explicit  set to 'on'

I found my mistake and figured I'd put it here just in case someone else might benefit.  I forgot 2 things on my asp:datagrid form.

DataKeyNames="MyKey" in the <asp:gridview>

<asp:GridView ID="gvResults" EmptyDataText="No records found" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="false" CssClass="Grid" Width="100%" AllowPaging="True" AllowSorting="True" DataKeyNames="MyKey">

 2.

CommandArgument="0"  in my <asp:linkbutton>

 Hope this helps someone!

Or so I thought.  What I didn't realize is what the CommandArgument really could be used for.  It did me no good to set it to 0 (zero).  I need to use it to get the index of the row since I'm using GridViewCommandEventsArg.  So back to one of the first posts on this topic.

How do I get the selected row index using GridViewCommandEventArgs.  Initially it was said that you can't use e.row so I need to either have the button CommandArgument send it or get it some other way. 

Any Help?

CommandArgument="SOME CODE??"  or a Better solution to have it in my