Regards
Oleg

Is it resonable to use those methods instead on md5 or base64 ?

        /// <summary>
        /// Encodes primary key to jqGrid id
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public string EncodeId(object[] primaryKeyValue)
        {
            string result = "";
            foreach (var key in primaryKeyValue)
            {
                if (result.Length != 0)
                    result += "/";
                result += Server.UrlEncode(key.ToString());
            }
            if (result.Length == 0) // empty string used as primary key
                return ":";
            return result;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Decodes jqGrid primary key to actual primary key values
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="id">id passed from jqGrid</param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public IList<string> DecodeId(string id)
        {
            if (id == ":")
                return new string[] { "" };
            var res = new List<string>();
            foreach (var key in id.Split('/'))
                res.Add(Server.UrlDecode(key));
            return res;
        }

I don't understand how you implement packet dumps and why you have the requirements at all. The Fiddler tool for example has "Encoder" button which allows you in easy way to decode any the information from the packet it it is encoded in some standard encoded formats (inclusive Base64 of course).

It seems to me that our discussion goes in the direction which is far from the subject of the forum. I suppose, that you understand my opinion, but you will have to solve your problems yourself.

Best regards
Oleg

I'm not sure that adding surrogate id to this table is reasonable for this.

Base64 encoding makes id too long and unreadable in packet dumps when debugging.

How to create encoder/decoder which masks only characters which are not allowed in jqGrid ids? Where to find list of such characters ? Are most unicode characters allowed in ids ? Should only spaces encoded or other characters also ?

 In this case ids are shorter and readable.

I suppose that under row edit mode you mean inline editing mode. It has serializeRowData which lay the same role as serializeDelData for the form editing. If you use both editing modes together in the grid you can share the code of the function which implement seriaization in both cases.

I am sure, that if you use id which is several kilobytes long than you should make modification in your database model. The usage of such "key" is almost the same as to use the full row data. It will be slow and ineffective. The sooner you make changes in the tables the better for your application.

If you will replace the keys with "several kilobytes" to the integer key you will save the sending to the client and from the client the garbage which is now inside of '_id1' and '_id2' columns. The searching by key will be also improved.

I don't play with "keys" having several kilobytes. You can test yourself whether it work or not.

Best regards
Oleg 

URL limit may be too short so onClickSubmit cannot used. Db structure change requires lot of changes in existing application, it is too expensive.

So only way seems to use base64 to create id1_id2  as id for jqGrid and use POST.

Will jqQrid form and row editing modes work OK if id1_id2 key used as id is several kilobytes long ?

Andrus.

Second, if you have general data as _id1 and _id2 which can contain any characters there are many simple transformation like base64 which allow you to convert it to less general character set. After the transformation you can use (id1 + '_' + id2) to produce the composed key.

Third, I find that having long strings which contains any characters as the primary key is not the best design solution. If you can make changes in the database model I would recommend you to change the design of the tables. You can add new column with autoincrement integer value and make the column as the new primary key. To be sure that "the old" primary key stay unique you can add UNIQUE constraint to the column. All this is a very simple trick used frequently in the database design. In the way you will have simple integer prinary key.

Best regards
Oleg 

Where to find sample jqGrid setup which allows to delete row in table where composite primary key contains any characters and can be larger than allowed browser url size ?

Moreover you don't wrote what information you use as the id of your grid. If you would construct id as (id1 + '_' + id2) then you can easy split the id information which will be send by jqGrid automatically in two parts and you will have on the server all information which you need. In the case you can reduce the number of columns in your grid. You should take in the consideration, that HTML code of grid contain <td> elements for all hidden columns. The <td> elements has style="display:none;" and so are invisable, but there take a little additional memory.

Best regards
Oleg 

jqGridd passes only surrogate id (row number) to server. It is impossible to find composite keys using row number since records may be already deleted by other users during editing.

How to implement delete in server if composite primary keys are used ?

Composite primary key columns can contain any characters. Should I create single key from them? How to encode spaces and other character which are not allowed in jqGrid ids ?

Also why aftersubmit method is not called if row is edited?

var lastSel;

$(function () {
    var grid = $("#grid");
    grid.jqGrid({
    scroll: 1,
    datatype: "json",
    mtype: 'POST',
    toolbar: [true, "top"],
    colModel: [
     { name: 'source', editable: true },
     { name: 'est', editable: true },
     { name: 'eng', editable: true },
     { name: 'rus', editable: true },
     { name: 'fin', editable: true },
     { name: 'lvl', editable: true },
     { name: 'ger', editable: true },
     { name: 'istopic', editable: true },
     { name: 'critical', editable: true },

         { name: '_id1',
             editable: true, editrules: { edithidden: true }, hidden: true        },
         { name: '_id2',
             editable: true, editrules: { edithidden: true }, hidden: true
         }

    ],

    ondblClickRow: function (id) {
                    if (id && id !== lastSel) {
                        grid.restoreRow(lastSel);
                        lastSel = id;
                    }
                    grid.editRow(id, true);
                },
                rowNum: 100,
                autoencode: true,
                gridview: true,
                pager: '#pscrolling',
                sortname: 'est',
                viewrecords: true,
                sortorder: "asc"

            }).navGrid("#pscrolling", { edit: true, add: true, del: true, refresh: true, search: true },

    {savekey: [true, 13],
    reloadAfterSubmit: true,
    jqModal: false,
    closeOnEscape: true,
    closeAfterEdit: true,
    url: '<%= ResolveUrl("~/Grid/Save")%>',
    afterSubmit: function (response, postdata) {
        if (response.responseText == "Success") {

            return [true, response.responseText]
        }
        else {
            return [false, response.responseText]
        }
    }
},

            // Add options
        {},

            // Delete options
        {
        url: '<%= ResolveUrl("~/Grid/Delete")%>',
        closeOnEscape: true,
        afterSubmit: function (response, postdata) {
            if (response.responseText == "Success") {
                return [true, response.responseText]
            }
            else {
                return [false, response.responseText]
            }
         }
       }
            );
       });