autocomplete textbox from the database

Question

I need my textbox to autocomplete when the user types. The value should come from the database. I am using the textchange property of the textbox.

protected void autocomplete(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    string query = "Select area,codes from tbl_pincode";
    SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=win2008-2;Initial       Catalog=h1tm11;User ID=sa;Password=#1cub3123*;Persist Security Info=True;");
    SqlCommand com = new SqlCommand(query, conn);
    conn.Open();
    SqlDataReader dr = com.ExecuteReader();
    while (dr.Read())
    {
        zipcode.Text = dr.GetValue(0).ToString();
    }
    conn.Close();
}

But i m not getting the desired result. Any ideas how to go about it?

Answer 1

Have you looked at using the jquery ui autocomplete component? You can hook this up to a remote datasource

http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/

Answer 2

You can use jQuery UI for autocomplete: http://www.dotnetcurry.com/ShowArticle.aspx?ID=515

Another option for ASP.NET autocomplete is AjaxControlToolkit: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/AjaxControlToolkitSampleSite/AutoComplete/AutoComplete.aspx

Answer 3

1. Never put your connection strings on ANY forum
2. Use AJAX otherwise you'll have to postback the page every time the user types a character. JQuery & JQueryUI provide easy support for autocomplete features.
3. use Telerik RadCombo (but you need to buy a license)

EDIT:

If you choose to use the JQueryUI autocomplete, I'd start from the remote JSONP example. You can point the url property of the ajax call inside the autocomplete's source function to a WebMethod in your page. This will receive an object containing the filter (data in the example) and return the required values from your database in JSON format (e.g. see this example)