The easiest way to populate drop down list with XML in C#

Populating the drop down list is fairly straigth forward and you can accomplish this task in a few minutes. I have included a sample project which you can download and try it on your computer.

Basically there are 3 steps to populate the drop drop down list:

1. Create a new dataset.
2. Use the dataset to read the XML file
3. Bind the dataset to the drop down list and you're done.

XML FILE:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Students>
<student>
<StudentID>1</StudentID>
<StudentName>Mike</StudentName>

  </student>
  <student>
    <StudentID>2</StudentID>
    <StudentName>Bob</StudentName>
  </student>
  <student>
    <StudentID>3</StudentID>
    <StudentName>Ben</StudentName>
  </student>
  <student>
    <StudentID>4</StudentID>
    <StudentName>Julie</StudentName>
  </student>
  <student>
    <StudentID>5</StudentID>
    <StudentName>Oliver</StudentName>
  </student>  
</Students>
 
  
ASPX FILE:
 
<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="LoadDropDownListFromXML._Default" %>
 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head runat="server">
    <title>Easist way to load drop down list from XML file</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
        <asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server">
        </asp:DropDownList>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>
</html>
 
 
CODE BEHIND FILE:

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Security;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;
using System.Xml.Linq;
 
namespace LoadDropDownListFromXML
{
    public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            LoadXML();
        }
 
        public void LoadXML()
        {
            string myXMLfile = Server.MapPath("~/StudentXML.xml");
            DataSet dsStudent = new DataSet();
            try
            {
                dsStudent.ReadXml(myXMLfile);
                DropDownList1.DataSource = dsStudent;
                DropDownList1.DataValueField = "StudentID";
                DropDownList1.DataTextField = "StudentName";
                DropDownList1.DataBind();            
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Response.Write(ex.ToString());
            }
        }
    }
}
 
Download the sample project

Comments (3)

|192.108.124.xxx |2010-06-02 16:59:39 Bob - Suggestion

I suggest changeing the page load to this: so when you go to do stuff the drop down box doesn't reset:

Code:



        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            if(!IsPostBack)

            {

            LoadXML();

            }

        }

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|210.8.191.xxx |2010-06-03 09:43:56 QV

Very good point Bob.
- 0
- 0
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|77.30.20.xxx |2010-08-30 21:42:11 Aman - this post does a gud job for my search ........

nice and useful post for all beginners who is looking for exact code......
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