Filtering names on the basis of first character of the name.

Question

i have a page in which i am displaying the name of all the users i want to filter their names on the basis of first character for that i want to show A B C D ....X Y Z filters on the top on clicking of which it will filter the names accordingly my problem is not the query part but how to add these letters do i have to add 26 link buttons separately or there is some work around for example you might have seen such type of behavior in some music sites for filtering the songs with starting character.

Answer 1

Use ASCII characters codes to do this, for example:

 var letters = new List<string>()
 for(int i = 65; i < 91; i++)
    letters.Add(Convert.ToChar(i).ToString());

Display it by adding links to page:

foreach(letter in letters)
{
    var hyperlink = new Hyperlink() 
                    { 
                       NavigateUrl = string.Format("Filter.aspx?letter={0}", letter),
                       Text = letter
                    }

    Page.Controls.Add(hyperlink);
}

Of course instead of Page you can use any other container you want, you just need to add those hyperlinks to controls collection.

Also take care to run this code in proper method, for example by overriding CreateChildControls method.

Regards

Answer 2

These are few useful links how to do alphabetical paging

1. http://www.highoncoding.com/Articles/209_GridView_Alphabet_Paging.aspx
2. http://aspdotnetcodebook.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-to-add-alphabet-paging-in-gridview.html