How to hide a column (GridView) but still access its value?

I have a GridView with a DataSource (SQL Database). I want to hide a column, but still be able to access the value when I select the record. Can someone show me how to do this?

This is the column I want to hide and still want to access its value:

<asp:BoundField DataField="Outlook_ID" HeaderText="OutlookID" />

I tried everything to hide the column (property Visible="false"), but I can't access its value.

<head runat="server">
<title>Accessing GridView Hidden Column value </title>
<style type="text/css">
  .hiddencol
  {
    display: none;
  }
</style>

<asp:BoundField HeaderText="Email ID" DataField="EmailId" ItemStyle-CssClass="hiddencol" HeaderStyle-CssClass="hiddencol" >
</asp:BoundField>

ArrayList EmailList = new ArrayList();
foreach (GridViewRow itemrow in gvEmployeeDetails.Rows)
{
  EmailList.Add(itemrow.Cells[YourIndex].Text);
}

If I am not mistaken, GridView does not hold the values of BoundColumns that have the attribute visible="false". Two things you may do here, one (as explained in the answer from V4Vendetta) to use Datakeys. Or you can change your BoundColumn to a TemplateField. And in the ItemTemplate, add a control like Label, make its visibility false and give your value to that Label.

Define a style in css:

.hiddencol { display: none; }

Then add the ItemStyle-CssClass="hiddencol" and the HeaderStyle-CssClass="hiddencol" attribute to the grid field:

<asp:BoundField DataField="ID" HeaderText="ID" ItemStyle-CssClass="hiddencol"  HeaderStyle-CssClass="hiddencol" ClientIDMode="Static" />

You can use DataKeys for retrieving the value of such fields, because (as you said) when you set a normal BoundField as visible false you cannot get their value.

In the .aspx file set the GridView property

DataKeyNames = "Outlook_ID"

Now, in an event handler you can access the value of this key like so:

grid.DataKeys[rowIndex]["Outlook_ID"]

This will give you the id at the specified rowindex of the grid.

You can do it programmatically:

grid0.Columns[0].Visible = true;
grid0.DataSource = dt;
grid0.DataBind();
grid0.Columns[0].Visible = false;

In this way you set the column to visible before databinding, so the column is generated. The you set the column to not visible, so it is not displayed.

How to hide a column (GridView) but still access its value?

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