ADO.NET get column header

Question

I am using ADO.NET.

I have 2 DataTables:

1) dt1  
2) dt2 

What I like to do is to copy just the header columns from dt1 and populate dt2 with it. Again I just need the column header.

What is the best approach to do this?

Answer 1

You need to Clone the DataTable. Use DataTable.Clone method.

DataTable dt = dt1.Clone();

If you just want to copy the column names and create columns with same name in the other DataTable you can do:

foreach (DataColumn dc in dt1.Columns)
{
    dt2.Columns.Add(dc.ColumnName);
}

If you just need column names then you can get a List<string> instead of a new DataTable. Like:

List<string> columnNames = dt1.Columns
                              .Cast<DataColumn>()
                              .Select(r => r.ColumnName)
                              .ToList();