We have been trying to create a Visualforce framework which can support the display of the results of any SOQL query - without anything pre-determined at compile time.  

The controller component uses a set of Apex classes, which are instantiated with the following information:

• The SObject name we want to query
• The field names we want to query (including relationship fields; e.g. 'Account.Name')
• The widths of the grid columns on the resulting VF page table 
• The query clause

All specified by strings.  And then using Database.query() and subsequent SObject.get (fldName) and SObject.getSObject (relpFldName) calls, we can create a matrix of data from the result set.  Note that the number of fields is determined at run-time, and so the number of columns in the resulting dataTable on the VF page is also determined at run-time.

We managed to build this and it works well.  Problems arise, however, trying to get this matrix displayed on the VF page. 

My first approach was to use the <apex:repeat> component, as follows:

<apex:dataTable value="{!myDynamicGrid}" var="myGridRow"> <apex:repeat value="{!myGridRow.columns}" var="myGridCell"> <apex:column width="{!myGridCell.width}"> <apex:outputText value="{!myGridCell.text}"/> </apex:column> </apex:repeat> </apex:dataTable>

But this doesn't even compile - apparently <apex:column> must be a direct child of <apex:dataTable>.

I have tried rolling my own a bit, using a hybrid of Visualforce markup and straight HTML, with no success.

Has anyone out there ever tried something like this?  Is there a way to accomplish this on a VF page, without resorting to ugly hard-coded column components on the VF page?

Thanks!