Custom Dataflow Component---add New Column To Buffer

This is trivial I'm sure but I'll be dogged if I can find someone who mentions how to do it. I am attempting to develop a Data Flow Transformation that appends a new column (a string value) into the current stream.

I have found plenty of references on how to replace an existing column but I'd really like to just add my new column in there. It doesn't need to be configurable, it can be a static column name. I'll take a solution that allows the column name to be set at design time, don't get me wrong but the magic I'm looking for is how to implement a new column in a stream.

Yes, I am well aware of the derived column task but I will be replacing a few hundred instances and I'd much rather just drag an item onto the designer than to drag a derived column, double click it, type in the column name, set the expression and then set the datatype, etc.

Anyone spare a moment to enlighten me?

Pardon the lack of formatting, this BB doesn't play with Opera (I know, I'm a heretic)


using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Pipeline;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Pipeline.Wrapper;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime.Wrapper;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime;

namespace Microsoft.Samples.SqlServer.Dts
{
[
DtsPipelineComponent
(
DisplayName = "Nii",
Description = "This is the component that says Nii.",
ComponentType = ComponentType.Transform
)
]
public class Nii : PipelineComponent
{


public override void ProcessInput(int inputID, PipelineBuffer buffer)
{
if (!buffer.EndOfRowset)
{
while (buffer.NextRow())
{
try
{
// do something here to
}
catch (Exception e)
{
ComponentMetaData.FireInformation(0, ComponentMetaData.Name, "There was an error on row " + buffer.CurrentRow.ToString() + ". The error is: " + e.Message + " : " + e.Source + " : " + e.StackTrace, "", 0, ref fireEventAgain);
}
}
}
}
}