How To Access the Data Key When Editing A GridView Row

Usually, when I create a GridView, I use an ID field that represents a unique ID tied to each row that I can use to update the database, as seen in the picture below.


However, I recently had a client request that I remove this field as it was confusing their customers. Fair enough. I removed the field, but now I had trouble updating or deleting the database. The field I was formerly using for my WHERE clause is no longer available. Luckily, I've fed the same ID field into the gridview as a Key:

<asp:GridView
    ID="GridView1"
    AutoGenerateColumns="false"
    CellPadding="3"
    DataKeyNames="orderID"
    AllowSorting="true"
    AutoGenerateSelectButton="true"
    AutoGenerateEditButton="true"
    AutoGenerateDeleteButton="true"
    OnRowEditing="GridView1_RowEditing"
    OnRowUpdating="GridView1_RowUpdating"
    OnRowCancelingEdit="GridView1_RowCancelingEdit"
    runat="server">

It would seem like common sense to be able to use the GridViewUpdateEventArgs parameter of my GridView1_RowUpdating Sub procedure a la e.Keys("orderID") to get the id of that particular row, but it return nothing. I'm not sure why this function of GridViewUpdateEventArgs exists, but I've never been able to get it to produce a value.

Exploring it a bit more, I looped through different arrays the GridView would provide and finally found the value using this method:

GridView1.DataKeys(e.RowIndex).Value

GridView1.DataKeys will provide a list of all the Keys of the gridview and feeding in the e.RowIndex will indicate that you want the key for the row you are editing.