Create hierarchical class structure , loop through data table and then add parent and child and return object

Question

I want to create a class structure that can represent the following heirarchichal structure of objects all of the same type

-Parent1
- - Child1 
- - - ChildA of Child1
- - - ChildB of Child1
- - Child2 
- - - ChildA of Child2
- - - ChildB of Child2
- Parent2

The datatable rows have an ID, ParentID, name and level

level is O for Parent, 1 for Child 1 , 2 for ChildA and so on

I'm able to return the data from the DB to a datatable but am struggling after that any help on creating the class structure and then populating the object would be greatly appreciated

How is this hierarchy represented in your dataTable ? Can you provide and example ? — digEmAll
– digEmAll, Commented May 1, 2012 at 9:38

Martin Liversage · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-01 11:01:16Z

9

Here is an example on how to do that using LINQ. First a sampe datatable. I assume that top-level items have a parent ID of 0.

var dataTable = new DataTable();
dataTable.Columns.Add("Id", typeof(Int32));
dataTable.Columns.Add("ParentId", typeof(Int32));
dataTable.Columns.Add("Name", typeof(String));
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 1, 0, "A" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 2, 1, "B" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 3, 1, "C" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 4, 0, "D" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 5, 4, "E" });

A class to represent each item of data:

class Item {

  public Int32 Id { get; set; }

  public String Name { get; set; }

  public IEnumerable<Item> Children { get; set; }

}

A function to get the children of a specific item:

IEnumerable<DataRow> GetChildren(DataTable dataTable, Int32 parentId) {
  return dataTable
    .Rows
    .Cast<DataRow>()
    .Where(row => row.Field<Int32>("ParentId") == parentId);
}

A function to create an item including the child collection. This function will recurse down the hierarchy:

Item CreateItem(DataTable dataTable, DataRow row) {
  var id = row.Field<Int32>("Id");
  var name = row.Field<String>("Name");
  var children = GetChildren(dataTable, id)
    .Select(r => CreateItem(dataTable, r))
    .ToList();
  return new Item { Id = id, Name = name, Children = children };
}

A function to get rows of the top-level items:

IEnumerable<DataRow> GetTopLevelRows(DataTable dataTable) {
  return dataTable
    .Rows
    .Cast<DataRow>()
    .Where(row => row.Field<Int32>("ParentId") == 0);
}

Putting it all together:

var items = GetTopLevelRows(dataTable)
  .Select(row => CreateItem(dataTable, row))
  .ToList();

edited May 1, 2012 at 11:01

answered May 1, 2012 at 10:05

Martin Liversage

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4 Comments

cWilk Over a year ago

oops , I'm actually using a dataset , does that change things greatly ?

Martin Liversage Over a year ago

A DataSet contains a Tables collection. Pick the table that contains the data.

cWilk Over a year ago

ya, i figured that out and used - return ResultSet.Tables[0] to get my table

cWilk Over a year ago

Thank you Martin, this was a great help

Jamie Dixon · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-01 09:40:16Z

2

Given the information above you could do this with just one class.

public class MyItem
{
  public IList<MyItem> ChildItems{get;set;}
}

Here you've basically got an object that can contain a collection of its own type as children, and thus, those children can contain collections of MyItem too as sub-children.

Consider the following:

var parentItem = new MyItem()
var childItem = new MyItem();
var childChildItem = new MyItem();

childItem.ChildItems.Add(childChildItem);
parentItem.ChildItems.Add(childItem);

There are nicer ways to code the adding of items but this breaks it down logically enough for the concept to be clear.

answered May 1, 2012 at 9:40

Jamie Dixon

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Comments

Enigmativity · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-16 03:36:36Z

Here's my approach.

Start with the data defined in the question:

var dataTable = new DataTable();
dataTable.Columns.Add("Id", typeof(int));
dataTable.Columns.Add("ParentId", typeof(int));
dataTable.Columns.Add("Name", typeof(String));
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 1, 0, "Parent1" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 2, 1, "Child1" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 3, 2, "ChildA of Child1" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 4, 2, "ChildB of Child1" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 5, 1, "Child2" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 6, 5, "ChildA of Child2" });
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 7, 5, "ChildB of Child2" });  
dataTable.Rows.Add(new Object[] { 8, 0, "Parent2" });

Then just do this:

var lookup = dataTable.Rows.Cast<DataRow>().ToLookup(x => x.Field<int>("ParentId"));

Func<int, Item[]> build = null;
build = n =>
    lookup[n]
        .Select(dr => new Item()
            {
                Id = dr.Field<int>("Id"),
                Name = dr.Field<string>("Name"),
                Children = build(dr.Field<int>("Id")),
            })
            .ToArray();

var items = build(0);

That gives:

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