ASP.NET Control Question

[MartinS]

OK, have wracked my brain (what little there is to wrack!) and I'm flummaxed, although it seems to be something that I can't believe is not doable easily!
I have, on an aspx page, a drop-down control, which contains a list - the text and value fileds are different, i.e.
Text Value
Survey 1 1
Survey 2 2
...
Now, selecting an entry by value is easy, but how do I select by text instead?
As I have said, it seems too obvious to not be easy, but I cannot for the life of me think of the answer.
My intention is to select an item from this control based on the contents of a dataset, but what is in the dataset is the text, not the value, so the following code doesn't work:

this.ddlAppID.SelectedValue = m_DS.Tables[0].Rows[aRecordNumber].ItemArray.GetValue(1).ToString();
 

Can anyone help put me out of my misery..please?
Thanks in advance
Martin

[Fodder]

not used asp.net but asp you could access control.text

but the fact that you are facing this data-translation problem suggests you've missed a trick OO-wise.

the only reason to have value and text different and using the text for lookup is if you are using the value for another lookup or calculation. This is a "hack" and should be avoided because what do you do when you need to apply a third piece of logic and neither your text nor value are suitable?

You need to model the relationship between your menu choices and table keys in either an object or an intermediate table.

Another problem with your current solution is that it breaks down if the text in your table is not suitable for presentation in an html control

oh, and searching tables using text is yuk

HTH

[MartinS]

Originally Posted by Fodder

not used asp.net but asp you could access control.text

but the fact that you are facing this data-translation problem suggests you've missed a trick OO-wise.

the only reason to have value and text different and using the text for lookup is if you are using the value for another lookup or calculation. This is a "hack" and should be avoided because what do you do when you need to apply a third piece of logic and neither your text nor value are suitable?

You need to model the relationship between your menu choices and table keys in either an object or an intermediate table.

Another problem with your current solution is that it breaks down if the text in your table is not suitable for presentation in an html control

oh, and searching tables using text is yuk

HTH

Hi
Thanks for the above. I was actually just trying to add some additional (useful) info to a screen, but it appears that it's not going to be possible, and as you say, will not really fit in with anything else.
Thanks anyway
Regards
Martin