2 items in a dropdown

Diddy Kong

hi, is it possible to have 2 items in a drop down box ie...variable1 - variable 2, but the value when selected is variable one, not both.....i know how to do it in asp but the same type of method doesnt work in asp.net

any help much appreciated

Seth Brundle

[I haven't studied asp.net but] you can set the label in the dropdown to be the two items but the value for this to be variable1
<option value="variable1" />variable1 - variable2
is this what you mean?

Diddy Kong

ye, thats the way it works in classic asp, but dowsnt seem to work in the .net stuff

Seth Brundle

as I don't know .net I can't really comment but as far as I can see all you are trying to do is something like Response.Write(variable1 & " - " & variable2)
What exactly is happening?

Diddy Kong

dropd1.DataValueField = "variable1"
dropd1.DataTextField = "variable1" & " - " & "variable2"
dropd1.databind

thats what i have so far, both variables are bein pulled from sql, and below is the error i get

System.Web.HttpException: DataBinder.Eval: 'System.Data.Common.DbDataRecord' does not contain a property with the name UPN - title.

Evil Phil

Off the top of my head I reckon you're trying to Bind to a field called 'UPN - Title', is this correct? If so then the object you're binding to doesn't have a field with that name. Check the query you're using to retrieve the data and see what name that field has.

It would be handy if you could post the actual code that you're using, both VB and any SQL you may be using.

Diddy Kong

Dim sql1 as string = "select var1,var2 from UPN_Description where Factory=@fchoice&quot;
Dim cmd1 as new SQLCommand(sql1, myConn)
Cmd1.parameters.add(New SQLParameter("@fchoice&quot;,list.selecteditem.value))
myConn.open()

dropd1.datasource=cmd1.ExecuteReader(system.data.CommandBehavior.CloseConnection)
dropd1.DataValueField = "var1"
dropd1.DataTextField = "var2" & " - " & "var2"
dropd1.databind
dropd1.visible="true"

if thats any help

Evil Phil

dropd1.DataTextField = "var2" & " - " & "var2"

Should be

dropd1.DataTextField = "var2" 

As what you're doing is concatenating strings to create a fieldname to bind the text too, which is throwing the DataBind.Eval error, and not concatenating the text that you want to display (which I suspect is what you were trying to do). That's why you're getting the error. Does this make sense?

I'm sure you could combine the text into one with some clever SQL-ery.

Diddy Kong

ok, if i add another sql query to the code, to concat the 2 variables, will the value of each concat option be one variable?

ie option="var1 - var2"
value="var1"

Evil Phil

Something like that, yeah, play around a bit and you'll work something out. 'Tis the fun of it.

Diddy Kong

cheers, eventually got it working...