How to properly code GetFormattedValue in custom GridViewCell

[James H. Hansen]

I found an excellent article in the MSDN library by Règis Brid showing how
to create a custom DataGridView column for NumericUpDown controls at
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730881(vs.80).aspx I am using the
article as a basis for a numeric textbox column, but I am really puzzling
over some of the code in the DataGridViewNumericUpDownCell class inherited
from DataGridViewTextBoxCell.

The GetFormattedValue method looks like this:

protected override object
GetFormattedValue(object value,
int rowIndex,
ref DataGridViewCellStyle cellStyle,
TypeConverter valueTypeConverter,
TypeConverter formattedValueTypeConverter,
DataGridViewDataErrorContexts context)
{
// By default, the base implementation converts the Decimal 1234.5 into
// the string "1234.5"
object formattedValue
= base.GetFormattedValue(value, rowIndex,
ref cellStyle,
valueTypeConverter,
formattedValueTypeConverter,
context);
string formattedNumber = formattedValue as string;
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(formattedNumber) && value != null)
{
Decimal unformattedDecimal = System.Convert.ToDecimal(value);
Decimal formattedDecimal =
System.Convert.ToDecimal(formattedNumber);
if (unformattedDecimal == formattedDecimal)
{
// The base implementation of GetFormattedValue (which triggers
the
// CellFormatting event) did nothing else than the typical
1234.5
// to "1234.5" conversion. But depending on the values of
// ThousandsSeparator and DecimalPlaces, this may not be the
actual
//string displayed. The real formatted value may be "1,234.500"
return formattedDecimal.ToString(
(this.ThousandsSeparator ? "N" : "F")
+ this.DecimalPlaces.ToString()
);
}
}
return formattedValue;
}

(I've slightly reformatted the above text to avoid superwide lines, but
haven't changed the code.)

Two things bother me:

First, the call to base.GetFormattedValue followed by the check for null or
empty string. According to the docs for the framework, the method returns
null "if the cell does not belong to a DataGridView control". If that is the
case, it seems there should be an easier way to test for that condition than
formatting the value. As for the empty string, I'm not sure what that is
about, but I suspect it has to do with null values.

Second, inside the "if" condition following the call to the base method,
there are two Convert.ToDecimal calls and a comparison of the results. I am
at pretty much a total loss to understand all that! I might guess that there
is an assumption that if they agree somebody else is doing some formatting
and we don't want to muck it up, but this seems like a thin hypothesis.

No other custom DataGridView column code I've looked at does anything like
this, although a few go out of their way to define sensible default values
in various cases.

I would like to avoid what appears to be a lot of overhead here because from
what I've read GetFormattedValue gets called a lot to check sizes of columns
and such as well as to format display values. In any case, I would like to
understand the example

Anybody have any insight on these two bits of coding?

....Jim

 

[James H. Hansen]

Am I to understand from the lack of response that nobody has any idea how this
code works?