Concatenate Two Fields to Display in Dropdown List

Question

I am trying to concatenate two fields from a list to display in a dropdown. Below is the code i am trying to use. I don't want to change the model of my products so I was trying to do something like that below but I can't figure anything out without building out my own object with the fields concatenated.

            skuDropDown.DataSource = List<product>
            skuDropDown.DataTextField = "ProductId" // want to combine with"Description";
            skuDropDown.DataValueField = "ProductId";
            skuDropDown.DataBind();

Thanks any ideas will help.

Answer 1

To assign the source with your given method, I would go for using LINQ to create an anonymous type with the properties you want. Something like

List<Product> products = new List<Product>();
products.Add(new Product() { ProductId = 1, Description = "Foo" });
products.Add(new Product() { ProductId = 2, Description = "Bar" });

var productQuery = products.Select(p => new { ProductId = p.ProductId, DisplayText = p.ProductId.ToString() + " " + p.Description });

skuDropDown.DataSource = productQuery;
skuDropDown.DataValueField = "ProductId";
skuDropDown.DataTextField = "DisplayText";
skuDropDown.DataBind();

Answer 2

IF you have a class to represent a product, just create a property that extend your class and return it combined, for example:

        public string ID_Description {
            get 
            {
               return string.Format("{0} ({1})", Name, ProductId);
            }
        }

and, in your databind dropdown reference your property

skuDropDown.DataSource = productQuery;     
skuDropDown.DataValueField = "ProductId";     
skuDropDown.DataTextField = "ID_Description";     
skuDropDown.DataBind(); 

Answer 3

You can do this:

List<Product>.ForEach(
  x => skuDropDown.Items.Add(
    new Item(x.ProductId + " " x.ProductDescription, x.ProductId)
 );

Just loop through the list and add each item to the drop down list. It's what .net will do for you behind the scenes in your example.