Select Item in ASP.NET DropDownList


This is by no means revolutionary, but I tell you, I just never took the time to centralize this code. Each time I had to write it out for each DropDownList made me sicker and sicker.

What I can say in my defense, and I bet many developers will agree, is that I have way too many things to do, seem to always be running behind, and there always seem to be something stupid in my code I never took the time to do properly.

I feel so much better now that I took all 3 minutes to write this. Whew!


public static void SelectListItem(DropDownList dropDown, string selectedValue, string defaultValue)
{
   if (dropDown.Items.FindByValue(selectedValue) != null)
      dropDown.Items.FindByValue(selectedValue).Selected = true;
   else
   {
      //SBE 12/25/2004:  if no default passed in, don't select anything
      if (defaultValue == null) return;

      if (dropDown.Items.FindByValue(defaultValue) != null)
         dropDown.Items.FindByValue(defaultValue).Selected = true;
      else
         throw new ApplicationException("'" + defaultValue + "' item doesn't exist in " + dropDown.ID.ToString());
   }
}


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