Question

I have a bunch of dropdownlists which I populate from an xml file using linq. I’ve tried the following to populate them and it somehow works, the only problem is that when an element is missing e.g. subtitle I get an empty space in the dropdownlist. Also I don’t get to have the distinct values of each dropdownlist but instead all values. See code below

 var feeds = (from item in doc.Descendants('item')                       select new                      {                          channel = (string)item.Element('channel') ?? null,                          specialtoken = (string)item.Element('specialtoken') ?? null,                          subchannel = (string)item.Element('subchannel') ?? null,                          subtitle = (string)item.Element('subtitle') ?? null,                      }).ToList().Distinct();           cboChannel.DataSource = feeds;         cboChannel.DataBind();          cboSpecialToken.DataSource = feeds;         cboSpecialToken.DataBind();          cboSubChannel.DataSource = feeds;         cboSubChannel.DataBind();          cboSubtitle.DataSource = feeds;         cboSubtitle.DataBind();         ...And so on.... 

Is there a better way than to split each value item into a seperate query e.g. ?

Cheers, Chris

var specialtoken = (from item in doc.Descendants('item')                      select new                      {                          specialtoken = (string)item.Element('specialtoken') ?? null,                      }).ToList().Distinct();   var channel= (from item in doc.Descendants('item')                      select new                      {                          channel = (string)item.Element('channel') ?? null,                      }).ToList().Distinct(); etc. etc. 

Answer 1

I think the easiest way is to keep the original query but then do a sub query for each of the drop downs that ensures there is a value in the item they care about.

cboChannel.DataSource = feeds.Where(x => !String.IsNullOrEmpty(x.channel)).ToList(); 

I find this to be much more concise