My Web form contains a dropdown list which is populated by data from the database table; the dropdown list will thus display a list of items from the DB. Since this particular field is optional, I want the dropdown list to be able to show a blank item that the user may select when the field is to be left blank. As a matter of fact, the blank item should be the default selection. How can I do this?

 Thanks in advance.

sg2000

In .NET 2.0, you can do the following:

<asp:DropDownList ID="MyDropDownList" AppendDataBoundItems="true" runat="server">
    <asp:ListItem Text="" Value="" />
</asp:DropDownList>

Or you can do it the good old fasion way:

MyDropDownList.Items.Insert(0, new ListItem())
 

hi,

from code behind also you can do it after binding to datasource this way

ListItem it = new listitem("text", value);

ddl.items.add(it);

hope it helps,

regards,

satish.

...of course ELB does this automatically; nothing is selected by default (so no need for a bogus item) and you can even have Prompt Text for the user when the selection is empty.

</shamelessPlug>

StrongTypes:

Thanks. As you suggested, it is now working.

sg2000

satish:

Thanks. As you suggested, it is now working.

sg2000

Good work, both of you guys.
 

How about a pony?

I think I have a pony around here somewhere... 

no worries sg

thanks to RYAN, PETER also .

regards,

satish.

I stumbled on this post and thought it might be helpful to add what I did:

I added this to the datagrid control:

<asp:DropDownList CssClass="txtbox" OnDataBound="addSpace" DataSourceID="SqlDataSource4"

DataTextField="XXXXXXXX" ID="ddUserIDs" runat="server">

</asp:DropDownList>

And on code behind:

'add blank to user id ddlist

End Sub

I also wrote this to make the default value what my user was logged in:

End Try

If you don't assign a DataValueField, will you be able to FindByValue?

If you're stuck in ASP.NET 1.x, then you'll have to take the approach you mentioned here, but otherwise you have the SelectedValue property at your disposal and the AppendDataBoundItems property as mentioned above.

Cheers, 

I did not check to see if 1.1 has this available. Should not be dependant on assigning the DataValueField.

Stuck in 1.1, use approach here? I'm using 2.0. Can you show what you mean in a code example? Thanx.

Chris,

    If you don't have a DataValueField assigned, how can you find by value?  Unless of course it uses the DataTextField in the absence of the DataValueField...

    As for what I mean in 2.0, see Ryan's (StrongTypes) post above.  It's a much simpler way to add static items, er... statically... in the current release.

Cheers,