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WinForms Name Lookup using a DataGridView
Language(s):C#
Category(s):DataGridView, Winforms
This is the companion webpage to the WinForms Name Lookup video on the SkyCoder Channel.

This is the companion webpage to the WinForms Name Lookup (http://youtu.be/xSNa3MPOtns) video on the SkyCoder Channel (www.youtube.com/c/SkycoderChannel).

The first thing I like to do when writing a WinForms app is to lay out the form the way I want it to look and make sure the eye candy is all good. In this application, I set the Anchor property of the Get Names button to hug the bottom left of the form, and the DataGridView to size with the form by setting Top, Left, Bottom and Right.

Next, since this is a WinForms app, my protocol is to use 'Swedish notation,' which is where you prefix the controls with a tag indication the type of control. So for example I used frmMain for the form, btnGetNames for the button and so on.

Just to make things look a little nicer, I added an icon for both the form and project. This is done by setting the Icon property in the form and the Icon and manifest under Project Properties.

 

        private void btnGetNames_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            var connectionString =

ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["Personel"].ToString();

            var dataAccessClass = new Repository(connectionString);

            grdResults.DataSource = dataAccessClass.GetNames

                (

                    string.IsNullOrEmpty(txtLastName.Text) ? null : txtLastName.Text,

                    string.IsNullOrEmpty(txtFirstName.Text) ? null : txtFirstName.Text,

                    string.IsNullOrEmpty(txtMiddleInitial.Text) ? null :

 txtMiddleInitial.Text,

                    GetSSN(txtSSN),

                    dteDOB.Checked ? dteDOB.Value : (DateTime?)null

                );

            grdResults.Columns[0].Visible = false;

            grdResults.Columns[1].HeaderText = "First Name";

            grdResults.Columns[2].HeaderText = "Middle Initial";

            grdResults.Columns[3].HeaderText = "Last Name";

        }

        private string GetSSN(MaskedTextBox txtSSN)

        {

            var textMaskFormat = txtSSN.TextMaskFormat;

            txtSSN.TextMaskFormat = MaskFormat.ExcludePromptAndLiterals;

            var gotText = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(txtSSN.Text.Trim());

            txtSSN.TextMaskFormat = textMaskFormat;

            return gotText ? txtSSN.Text : null;

        }

A DateTimePicker control was used for Date of Birth. I set the ShowCheckBox property to true so that a checkbox will be used to enable or disable the control. If this property is checked, I send the Date of Birth entered by the user to the method, otherwise null. 

For the Social Security Number, I used a Masked Edit Control and selected the preset for Social Security Number. When this control is used, the default will be to return the entire string along with the formatting characters - which in this case are dashes. Setting the TextMaskFormat property to ExcludePromptAndLiterals will override this behavior. The GetSSN function saves the current setting of TextMaskFormat, sets it to ExcludePromptAndLiterals and then checks to see if anything has been entered into the MakedEdit control. The function will return the string, including the format characters if something has been entered by the user, otherwise it will return null.

Now all that's needed is to add a reference to the Data Access class, which was already developed in a previous different video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zelFDKfJA18. (The download link above has all of the code needed including the database).

The Data Access class has a method called GetNames, that will return a IEnumerable list of names from the database based on the search criteria - First Name, Last Name, Middle Initial, Date of Birth or Social Security Number. All we need to is to set the DataSource property of the DataGridView to the results of the GetNames method and the grid will be populated.

The DataGridView control will be populated with all of the fields from the GetNames result and the column headings will default to the field names. So the last thing is to hide the Id column and change the FirstName, MiddleInitial and LastName columns to 'First Name,' 'Middle Name,' and 'Last Name.'

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