Question

I read my dropdownlost data from one of my tables on database . I want to add an external value ( Select ) to my dropdownlist ..
This is my datasorource sql code

SELECT        ID, Part, fxCarId
FROM            tblParts
WHERE        (fxCarId = @fxCarId)
UNION
SELECT        TOP (1) 0 AS Expr2, 'Select' AS Expr1
FROM            tblParts AS tblParts_1

How can I add this ‘ Select ‘ text into my dropdownlist ?

Answer 1

You were along the right lines, but your union requires that both statements have the same number of columns, you had 2 columns in the top part and only 2 on the bottom.

SQL-Server also doesn’t require that you select directly from a table, so rather than doing SELECT TOP 1 from a table, you can specify your values directly:

SELECT  ID, Part, fxCarId
FROM    tblParts
WHERE   fxCarId = @fxCarId
UNION
SELECT  0, 'Select', 0

What I tend to do to ensure “Select” is at the top of any drop down is add a SortOrder column, this way you can ensure “Select” is the default value at the top of the list, but the remainder of the drop down is in alphabetical order which is more logical for the user.

SELECT  ID, Part, fxCarId, 1 [SortOrder]
FROM    tblParts
WHERE   fxCarId = @fxCarId
UNION
SELECT  0, 'Select', 0, 0
ORDER BY SortOrder, Name