How to Copy one datatable to another datatable

Introduction : In this article i am going to share about how to copy a datatable to a new datatable object , and how to add a new row to the datatable.

Overview :

Generally we used datatable object to store out table data, sometime we want to store that datatable temporally to a

another datatable object that time we need to copy the datatable and store to newly created object . It's a best practice

to copy our main datatable when we need that datatable multiple times  and used the copyed object. We can add a new

column dynamically to the newly created object.

Code Example :

Syntex :

DataTable dest = MainDatatable;

Connection String :

<connectionStrings>

   <add name="conn" connectionString="Data Source=anil\SQLEXPRESS2012;Initial Catalog=MyDB;

User ID=sa;Password=sa1" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

 </connectionStrings>

C# Code :

SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["conn"].ToString()); //Connection String

           con.Open();

           SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("SelectEmployee", con);    // Storeprocedure to get the data

           cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;

           SqlDataAdapter adp = new SqlDataAdapter(cmd);

           DataTable dt = new DataTable(); // First Inital Datatable object

           adp.Fill(dt); // Data filling on the dt object

           con.Close();

// Here we got our main Datatable 'dt'

           DataTable dt2 = new DataTable(); // Second destination Datatable

           dt2 = dt; // Copying dt data to dt2 // other way ; dt2=dt.copy();

         

//Here we a going to add a new column to the datatable with the specific column possition.

// Here the new column name is Index with integer type.

 int counter = 0;

// Adding columns column name as "Index"

  dt2.Columns.Add("Index", typeof(Int32)).SetOrdinal(0);   // SetOrdinal(0) for placing the column possition

// Adding value 'counter' to  newly created column Index one by one

           foreach (DataRow drow in dt2.Rows)

           {

               drow["Index"] = counter;

               counter++;

           }

Important Note :

In above example i used con for database connection , it is not a mandatory to use con as a connection string you can use
your own keyword.

Here some namespace is required ,

using System.Web.Configuration;

using System.Data;

using System.Data.SqlClient;

using System.Configuration;

Conculation :

This is how we can copy a datatable to a another datatable and a row dynamically.