Question

I just started working with ASP.NET and Visual Studio 2008. I want to create something fairly straightforward, yet I don’t know how to approach it yet.

I have access to an Oracle table that I’d like to leverage to create a report interface. For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume that this table only has three columns:

1. REPORT_DATE
2. SUCCESSES
3. FAILURES

Now, the proposed ASP.NET interface will only have two components:

1. DropDownList
2. GridView (or table, whichever is simpler)

The DropDownList will allow the user to select a date (e.g. 11/8/2012). The GridView will then populate based on the user selection. It will display all columns except “REPORT_DATE”. In this hypothetical scenario, the GridView will display “SUCCESSES” and “FAILURES”. Essentially, it would follow this SQL statement:

SELECT * FROM MyTable WHERE REPORT_DATE=insertSelectedReportDateHere;

So far, I have successfully populated the DropDownList with REPORT_DATE using Visual Studio’s GUI to connect to my database and table. However, I’m unsure how to implement the population of the GridView based on my selection. I assume this will require hard-coding AJAX, but I wasn’t sure how powerful Visual Studio’s GUI was.

Is there a way to do this using the GUI? Or do I have to do it programmatically? Any suggestions or resources that I should reference?

Thank you!

Answer 1

This can most certainly be done without resorting to doing it programatically:

        <asp:SqlDataSource
            ID="dropDownDS"
            runat="server"
            ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:connectionString %>"
            SelectCommand="select distinct reportdate from reports"></asp:SqlDataSource>
        <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlReports" runat="server"
            AutoPostBack="True"
            DataSourceID="dropDownDS"
            DataTextField="reportdate"
            DataValueField="reportdate" />
        <asp:SqlDataSource ID="gridDS"
            runat="server"
            ConnectionString="<%$ ConnectionStrings:connectionString %>"
            SelectCommand="SELECT * FROM Reports WHERE ReportDate = @ReportDate">
            <SelectParameters>
                <asp:ControlParameter ControlID="ddlReports" Name="reportdate" PropertyName="SelectedValue" />
            </SelectParameters>
        </asp:SqlDataSource>
        <asp:GridView ID="gvReports"
            runat="server"
            AutoGenerateColumns="False"
            DataKeyNames="ReportId"
            DataSourceID="gridDS">
            <Columns>
                <asp:BoundField DataField="ReportId" HeaderText="ReportId" Visible="False" />
                <asp:BoundField DataField="ReportDate" HeaderText="ReportDate" />
                <asp:BoundField DataField="Successes" HeaderText="Successes" />
                <asp:BoundField DataField="Failures" HeaderText="Failures" />
            </Columns>
        </asp:GridView>

Welcome to the wrold of ASP.NEt and to stackoverflow!