Push a new <tr> into a GridView?

Question

What I'd like to do is create a second row that spans the others within a GridView. The idea is that it is data within the GridViewRow, say a long varchar() in col 4. But when translating to HTML, how would I put that in a second row?

<table>
    <tr>
        <td></td>
        <th>ru sure?</th>
        <th>date</th>
        <th>category</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td rowspan="2"><a href=" ">edit</a></td>
        <td>yes</td>
        <td>"12/31/2009"</td>
        <td>website feedback</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td colspan="3"><textarea rows="3" cols="50"></textarea></td>
    </tr>
</table>

I can take care of the cell output, but I don't know how to terminate one row and begin another. Logically, it still represents one row of data.

Answer 1

Have you looked at the ListView control? It allows for some very complex layouts.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb398790.aspx

Answer 2

One techniquehack that I've used is to have the last regular column of the GridView be a TemplateField, and then put the extra row in there. For example, something like this:

<asp:GridView runat="server">
    <Columns>
        <asp:BoundField/>
        <asp:BoundField/>
        <asp:BoundField/>
        <asp:TemplateField>
            <ItemTemplate>
                <%#Eval("category")%>
            </td></tr>
            <tr><td colspan="3">
                <textarea rows="3" cols="50"></textarea>
            </ItemTemplate>
        </asp:TemplateField>
    </Columns>
</asp:GridView>