Almost every class within FarPoint.Win.Spread namespace has a Clone() method to clone their object. You can clone Styles, Celltypes, Charts and many other objects but Spread itself does not a have Clone method to allow to make a copy of it. Whereas we may need sometime to make a copy of our existing Spread control which retains the events , styles and formulas from the original Spread. This blog looks to overcome this limitation and help you understand cloning a Spread object using XML Serialization. Following code serialize Spread control with all the formatting to make a clone of it:
'Copying to a memory stream
Dim ms As New System.IO.MemoryStream()
FarPoint.Win.Spread.Model.SpreadSerializer.SaveXml(FpSpread1, ms, False)
ms = New System.IO.MemoryStream(ms.ToArray())
'Copying from memory stream to clone spread object
Dim newSpread As New FarPoint.Win.Spread.FpSpread()
FarPoint.Win.Spread.Model.SpreadSerializer.OpenXml(newSpread, ms)
Once the Spread is serialized now we need to attach events from the original Spread to cloned Spread. To do this we will get all the events from original Spread and assign them to cloned Spread one by one through Reflection using Delegates:
Dim fInfo As FieldInfo() = GetType(FarPoint.Win.Spread.FpSpread).GetFields(BindingFlags.Instance Or BindingFlags.[Public] Or BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.[Static])
For Each field As FieldInfo In fInfo
If field IsNot Nothing Then
Dim del As [Delegate] = Nothing
If field.FieldType.Name.Contains("EventHandler") Then
del = DirectCast(field.GetValue(baseObject), [Delegate])
End If
If del IsNot Nothing Then
Dim eInfo As EventInfo = GetType(FarPoint.Win.Spread.FpSpread).GetEvent(del.Method.Name.Substring(del.Method.Name.IndexOf("_"c) + 1))
If eInfo IsNot Nothing Then
eInfo.AddEventHandler(newSpread, del)
End If
End If
End If
Next
Download the attached samples for complete implementation: Sample C# Sample VB.Net
MESCIUS inc.