Creating a custom format string in a dataGridView

Question

I have a dataGridView whose dataSource is a dataTable.

My problem is that I want certain columns to be displayed in Hex. I can get that far with using something like this:

 foreach (DataGridViewColumn c in grid.Columns)
        {
            if (DISPLAYED_IN_HEX.Contains(c.Name))
            {
                c.DefaultCellStyle.Format = "X";

            }
        }

My issue though is that I want this hex value prepended with 0x so as not to confuse anyone that they are in hexidecimal form. The values in the dataTable are various integral types. I looked into creating a custom IFormatProvider, but I don't think my coding skills are up to that par yet. Any other possible solutions?

Answer 1

Not the most efficient way maybe, but maybe you could handle the CellFormatting event and then change the formatting on a cell by cell basis.

Answer 2

Yes, the CellFormatting event will do just fine. Here's an example one, it tries to convert a decimal number in the first column to hex:

    private void dataGridView1_CellFormatting(object sender, DataGridViewCellFormattingEventArgs e) {
        if (e.ColumnIndex == 0 && e.Value != null) {
            long value = 0;
            if (long.TryParse(e.Value.ToString(), out value)) {
                e.Value = "0x" + value.ToString("X");
                e.FormattingApplied = true;
            }
        }
    }