Accessing the underlying data in an ObjectDataSource object

Sometimes you need to access the underlying data object of an ObjectDataSource object. An example may be that you need to change the caption of a non-bindable label based on some field in the data. It can be done by using the OnSelected event of the ObjectDataSource. The
ObjectDataSourceStatusEventArgs parameter of that event has a property called ReturnValue which points to the data object returned by the SelectMethod of the ObjectDataSource. If the SelectMethod returns a DataSet object, look through the tables and rows of the DataSet to find the desired data.

Dictionaries and null keys

C# does not let you initialize a dictionary entry by simply assigning a value to a non-existant key in the dictionary. So instead of

  mydictionary[key] = value;    

...where "key" does not yet exist in the dictionary, it is necessary to do something like this...

  if (mydictionary.ContainsKey(key))

  {

    mydictionary[key] += value;

    //or

    mydictionary[key] = value;

  }

  else

  {

    mydictionary.Add(key, value);

  }