ASP.net GridView - Use If-Statement in HeaderText property of BoundField

Question

Can I do something like this:

    <asp:BoundField DataField="Field1" 
HeaderText='<% IF(Eval("Field2").ToString().SubString(3,4).Equals("Text3"),"Text1","Text2") %>'
SortExpression="Field1" />

With the goal of having the header of Field1 be Text1 when the 4th-7th characters of Field2 = Text3 and Text2 otherwise?

I tried it and it just put "'<% IF(Eval("Field2").ToString().SubString(3,4).Equals("Text3"),"Text1","Text2") %>'" as the actual header string!

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The Eval() statement has meaning only within a data-binding context. As you'll find if you used data binding syntax (<%# /*...*/ %>), the header text does not provide a data-binding context. After all, there's only one header for zero-to-many rows.

You can set header text imperatively from the code-behind:

myGrid.Columns[columnIndex].HeaderText = //...

Answer 2

If-Else is not supported for Eval in gridview. You could write a (at least protected when calling from aspx) Codebehind function that returns the value or use Gridview.RowDataBound for that.