5.8 Hyperlink from a Row in the Data Grid to a Detail Page
Often, I need to zero in and display data based on a record in the DataGrid control. How
do I display detail information in a separate page from a DataGrid control?
Technique
One of the types of columns that you can use in the data grid is the HyperLink column.
This column makes it fairly easy to link pages based on data. To see how the HyperLink
type column is used in this How-To, take a look at Figure 5.14.
Figure 5.14. No code is required for link pages based on data.

By your specifying the URL Field to be ProductID and URL Format String to be
wfrmHowTo5_8b.aspx?ID={0}, the data grid automatically calls the
wfrmHowTo5_8b.aspx and passes the ProductID to the form when you click on a
product.
Steps
Open and run the Visual Basic .NET-Chapter 5 solution. From the main page, click on
the hyperlink with the caption How-To 5.8: Hyperlink From a Row in the Data Grid to a
Detail Page. You then see all the products loaded into a data grid. Notice that the
products are actually hyperlinks (see Figure 5.15).
Figure 5.15. These hyperlinks require no code to call a detail page.

When you click on a product, another page is displayed, with detail information supplied
(see Figure 5.16).
1. Create a Web Form. Then place the controls in Table 5.12 and Figure 5.15 with
the following properties set.
Table 5.12. Property Settings for the Controls Used on the First Page of This
How-To
Object Property Setting
OleDbDataAdapter ID odaProducts
SelectCommand SELECT ProductID, ProductName
FROM Products

TextBox ID txtUnitPrice
5. Add the code in Listing 5.31 to the Load event of the page. In the SQL select
statement created in this listing, the Request.Item is used to grab the productID
that was passed from the first form. The dtProdIndiv data table is filled, and the
individual column information is loaded into the text boxes.
Listing 5.31 wfrmHowTo5_8b.aspx.vb: Loading the Detail Information Based
on the ProductID
Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object,
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

'Put user code to initialize the page here

Dim odaProdIndiv As OleDb.OleDbDataAdapter
odaProdIndiv = New _
OleDb.OleDbDataAdapter(_
"Select * From Products Where ProductID = " &
Request.Item("ID"), BuildCnnStr("(local)", "Northwind"))

Dim dtProdIndiv As New DataTable()
odaProdIndiv.Fill(dtProdIndiv)

With dtProdIndiv.Rows(0)
Me.txtProductName.Text = .Item("ProductName")
Me.txtUnitPrice.Text = .Item("UnitPrice")
End With

End Sub
Figure 5.16. You will use the request object in code on this page to retrieve detail
data.