Here is a cool way to select an item from the DropDownList using it's value.
ddlCountries.Items.FindByValue(value).Selected = true;
However I keep forgetting how to do it and end up spending ages searching for it, so here is a very usefull extension method that allows you to select an item from a DropDownList using the text or value of the item without needing to know the index of the item.
using System;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
namespace Core.ExtensionMethods
{
public class GenericDropDownListException : Exception, ISerializable
{
public GenericDropDownListException(string type, string value) :
base(string.Format("Unable to set \"{0}\" to {1}", type, value)) { }
}
public static class DropDownListExt
{
public static void SelectValue(this DropDownList bob, string value)
{
try
{
if (bob.SelectedIndex >= 0)
bob.Items[bob.SelectedIndex].Selected = false;
bob.Items.FindByValue(value).Selected = true;
}
catch
{
throw new GenericDropDownListException("value", value);
}
}
public static void SelectText(this DropDownList bob, string text)
{
try
{
if (bob.SelectedIndex >= 0)
bob.Items[bob.SelectedIndex].Selected = false;
bob.Items.FindByText(text).Selected = true;
}
catch
{
throw new GenericDropDownListException("value", text);
}
}
}
}
Now all you need to do to select an item from the DropDownList is:
ddlCountries.SelectText("UK");
