Format GridView column header text automatically

Here is a snippet of code that I use for with GridViews to convert Database column names to User friendly text. This comes in handy when I am too lazy or not enough time to go through and change the names of the automatically generated column names that are shown as the column headers in a GridView. This also makes it easy to keep the text looking nice even when the columns change and the columns get regenerated. I realize there are some downsides, like slight performance hit, etc, but for departmental solutions were development time is the most precious thing I have, this is a time saver.

This method assumes that your column names are in Pascal Case. This means that all columns start with a capital letter, and that each word in the column name starts with a capital as well. Everything else in between should be lowercase. An example of this is FirstName or LastName or or ZipCode or DisplayName.

// assumes that source text is in PascalCase and that it
// should be changed to more human readable capitalization.
// i.e. BrentVermilion is in pascal case and a more human
// readable form is Brent Vermilion
public static string MakeUserFriendly(string text)
{

 StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(text);

 int insertAdjustment=0;
 char ch;
 for (int i = 0; i < text.Length; i++ )
 {
  // AND the previous letter wasn't an Uppercase letter
  if (!char.IsUpper(text[i - 1]))
  {
   // insert a space before the uppercase letter
   sb.Insert(i + insertAdjustment, ' ');

   // we need to keep track of how many space we have added
   // so we know what the adjusted index to insert at will be
   insertAdjustment++;
  }

 }
 return sb.ToString();
}

One place you can call this method is in the PageLoad event.

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
 if (!Page.IsPostBack)
 {

  // convert cryptic Pascal Case header column text
  // (what the user sees) to User friendly readable text
  for (int i = 0; i < myGridView.Columns.Count; i++)
  {
   myGridView.Columns[i].HeaderText =
    MakeUserFriendly(myGridView.Columns[i].HeaderText);
  }
 } 
}