Data source is an invalid type. It must be either an IListSource, IEnumerable, or IDataSource

Question

Data source is an invalid type. It must be either an IListSource, IEnumerable, or IDataSource. The error is displayed when I bind the grid view

var list = d         


        

Answer 1

Could the above not be shortend to..

var empInfo = dal.GetEmployeebyName(name);

GridViewEmployee.DataSource = empInfo.ToList();
GridViewEmployee.DataBind();

Answer 2

In my testing page I make us of the following piece of code to display a list of different objects or just a single object in the same gridview.

   var data = bl.getAirlines();
   // If single object returned cast to List
   // Note that could be already a list of 1 item though!
    if (data.Count == 1)
    {
        var list = new List<object> { data };               
        GridView1.DataSource = list;
    }
    else
     // Bind to list of items returned
        GridView1.DataSource = data;

    GridView1.DataBind();

Hope it helps! It works for me :)

Answer 3

You are returning a single object from GetEmployeebyName method and binding that to the GridViewEmployee, thats why it is giving error.

You can change it like

var empInfo = dal.GetEmployeebyName(name);
var list = new List<EmployeeInfo>{empInfo};

//or you can do this 
//var list = new List<EmployeeInfo>();
//list.Add(empInfo);

GridViewEmployee.DataSource = list;
GridViewEmployee.DataBind();

DataSource must be a type of collection as the exception is stating ( It must be either an IListSource, IEnumerable, or IDataSource)