Spread for ASP.NET 12 Product Documentation
Understanding How Cell Types Display Data
Spread for ASP.NET 12 Product Documentation > Developer's Guide > Customizing with Cell Types > Understanding How Cell Types Work > Understanding How Cell Types Display Data

The cell type affects how the contents of the cell are displayed. The cell contains formatted and unformatted data.

The Text property contains the formatted data which is displayed in the cell; the Value property contains the unformatted data which is saved in the model. You can use the SheetView GetText and GetValue methods to obtain the contents of the cell, regardless of cell type. For more information about data methods and properties, refer to Placing and Retrieving Data.

The following table lists the editable cell types, and how each cell type works with the data, whether formatted (Text property) or unformatted (Value property).

Editable Cell Type Sample Input Resultant (Text) Formatted Data Resultant (Value) Unformatted Data
CurrencyCellType "$10,000.00" "$10,000.00" 10000.00
DateTimeCellType "10/29/2002" "10/29/2002" DateTime object of Tuesday, October 29, 2002 12:00:00 AM
DoubleCellType "10000.00" "10000.00" 10000.00
GeneralCellType Any text String of that data Depends on whether DateTime, Boolean, or Text returns the DateTime object, the Boolean value, or the Text value
IntegerCellType "12345" "12345" 12345
PercentCellType "15%" "15%" 0.15
RegExpCellType (Regular Expression) "123-45-6789" "123-45-6789" "123-45-6789"
TextCellType Any text String of that text String of that text

The DateTime cell returns data in the format of the FormatString property setting. In this example, the format string is set to "F".

If the cell's Multiline property is set to true, you can include a line feed character to include a line break when setting text.

Numbers are converted to scientific notation if they are greater than 999,999,999,999,999 or less than -999,999,999,999,999. Low fraction numbers are also converted to scientific notation.

The following table lists the graphical cell types, and how each cell type works with the data, whether formatted (Text property) or unformatted (Value property).

Graphical Cell Type Sample Input Resultant (Text) Formatted Data Resultant (Value) Unformatted Data
ButtonCellType null null null
CheckBoxCellType True (checked) "True" 1
  False (unchecked) "False" 0
  Not set; looks false Empty string Null
ComboBoxCellType Any item Text of selected item Text of selected item or index of selected item
  No item selected Empty string Null
HyperLinkCellType Any text String of that text "True" (for visited link) or "False" (for not visited)
ImageCellType      
LabelCellType Any text String of that text String of that text
ListBoxCellType Any item selected Text of the selected item Text of or index of selected item
MultiColumnComboBoxCellType Any item Text of selected item Text of selected item or index of selected item
RadioButtonListCellType Any item selected Text of the selected item Text of or index of selected item
  No item selected Empty string Null