Question

I have a dropdownlist which shows a list of countries from my database

public void ShowCountries()
    {
        OdbcConnection conn;
        conn = new OdbcConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["jConnString"].ConnectionString);
        conn.Open();
        string sql = "SELECT iso,printable_name FROM country";

        OdbcCommand cmd = new OdbcCommand(sql, conn);


        try
        {
            //ddlCountry.DataSourceID = "country";
            ddlCountry.DataSource = cmd.ExecuteReader();
            ddlCountry.DataTextField = "printable_name";
            ddlCountry.DataValueField = "iso";
            ddlCountry.DataBind();
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Check.Text = "3" + ex.Message;
        }
        finally
        {
            ddlCountry.Dispose();
            conn.Close();
            conn.Dispose();
        }

    }

in the aspx file this is the way how I call this databounded list

    <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlCountry" runat="server" 
DataTextField="printable_name" 
DataValueField="iso">
    </asp:DropDownList>

It shows the list but if I want to select an option other then the first one it always inserts the value of the first option en never the selected one, what am I doing wrong ?

Answer 1

It sounds to me like the data source is being (re-)bound to the control before you are accessing the selected value, thus the selected value is always the first value in the datasource.

Where and when does ShowCountries get called? At a guess, I’d say you’re missing a check for IsPostback in Page_Load

if (!IsPostback) {
    // bind the datasource here, when the page initially loads
    ShowCountries();
}

Also, I don’t think you want to call Dispose() on ddlCountry in the finally block.