How to change DataTable columns order

c# datatable
Vyasdev Meledath picture Vyasdev Meledath · Sep 21, 2010 · Viewed 138k times · Source

How to change Datatable columns order in c#.

Example:

am created sql table type order is Qty,Unit,Id but in program DataTable order is Id,Qty,Unit. In code Behind am directly pass DataTable to sql table type so the table order is different.

DataTable columns are: `Id,Qty,Unit.`  I want this to be: `Qty,Unit,Id`

Please help

Answer

default locale picture default locale · Sep 21, 2010

Try to use the DataColumn.SetOrdinal method. For example:

dataTable.Columns["Qty"].SetOrdinal(0);
dataTable.Columns["Unit"].SetOrdinal(1);

UPDATE: This answer received much more attention than I expected. To avoid confusion and make it easier to use I decided to create an extension method for column ordering in DataTable:

Extension method:

public static class DataTableExtensions
{
    public static void SetColumnsOrder(this DataTable table, params String[] columnNames)
    {
        int columnIndex = 0;
        foreach(var columnName in columnNames)
        {
            table.Columns[columnName].SetOrdinal(columnIndex);
            columnIndex++;
        }
    }
}

Usage:

table.SetColumnsOrder("Qty", "Unit", "Id");

or 

table.SetColumnsOrder(new string[]{"Qty", "Unit", "Id"});

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