Need help databinding an ArrayList of ListItems - .NET 1.1

Question

I am databinding a dropdown list with the following array list:

ArrayList al = new ArrayList();
al.Add(new ListItem("Service Types", 1));
al.Add(new ListItem("Expense Types", 2));
al.Add(new ListItem("Payment Terms", 3));
al.Add(new ListItem("Classes", 4));
al.Add(new ListItem("Project", 5));
al.Add(new ListItem("Employees", 6));
al.Add(new ListItem("Payroll Codes", 7));

ddlType.DataSource = al;
ddlType.DataBind();

This results in the following HTML:

<select name="ddlType">
    <option value="Service Types">Service Types</option>
    <option value="Expense Types">Expense Types</option>
    <option value="Payment Terms">Payment Terms</option>
    <option value="Classes">Classes</option>
    <option value="Project">Project</option>
    <option value="Employees">Employees</option>
    <option value="Payroll Codes">Payroll Codes</option>
</select>

How can I set the DataTextField and DataValueField properties on my dropdown so that the values of the list items are the values in the dropdown?

Thanks.

Answer 1

ddlType.DataTextField = "Text";
ddlType.DataValueField = "Value";

Answer 2

Instead of an Instead of an ArrayList containg ListItems why don't you create a Hashtable?

Hashtable hash = new Hashtable();
hash.Add("one", "1")
hash.Add("two", "2")

dd.DataSource = ht
dd.DataTextField = "value"
dd.DataValueField = "key"
dd.DataBind()

Answer 3

Have you tried creating a ListItemCollection and binding to that?

Answer 4

Why bother with databinding at all. You can populate the items collection directly:

ddlType.Items.Add(new ListItem("Service Types", 1));
...
ddlType.Items.Add(new ListItem("Payroll Codes", 7));

and it will even make your code 3 lines shorter ;-)