Coding practice: how to avoid hard coding?

Question

I have a table in the database that store 4 category and the structure of the table is ID (GUID), description. I load the category into a dropdown list (asp.net webform) to allow people to select a category and based on what they selected. I'll then display info associated with their selection and hide the others.

Currently, i do a "select case" based on the GUID that i hard coded in code behind to display the associated info. Is there a better way to do this without hard code in GUID on the code behind?

Answer 1

What is the Data that's associated with the Guid/Description...

The data you've hardcoded sound's like a candidate for being added to the database itself.

If it's one piece of information per Category/Guid, then consider extending your Database Table to store that info to.

If it's multiple piece of information per Category/Guid, then consider creating a new Table With a CategoryID on it, and a foreign key relationship between your Category Table and your ExtraInfo table

Answer 2

You could query the database for the GUIDs when the app starts and cache them in a static Dictionary.

Answer 3

you could store the GUID in your web-config and load it at run time. then, you can easily replace that GUID with another w/o having to recompile.

Answer 4

You should have a Categories table and a Posts table (or whatever it is that you will tag with your categories). In the Posts table you have a column for the CategoryID (assuming each post can only belong to one category), so that you only have the category name in one place (normalize your data).

When you render the dropdownlist, you select the GUID:s from the database. No hard coding, and if you add another category (or remove one) the dropdownlist will automatically reflect the available categories.

Answer 5

If you bind the dropdown list to the Category row or a Tuple that contains the category name and the value you can load the Guid in your codebehind using the SelectedValue property. You will then set the DataTextField and DataValueField on the Dropdownlist.