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asp.netajaxcontroltoolkitautocompleteextender

AutoCompleteExtender in ASP.NET additional info

how do I pass additional information to the service method returning the collection of items? I'll attempt to explain what I mean, I have 2 text boxes on a form, I need to fill out names, based of a specific account id in a database. so, I need to pass an integer to the getNamesForDropDown method. I couldn't figure out what to do, so I did the wrong thing, and used the CompletionSetCount to actually pass the information I needed:

[System.Web.Services.WebMethod]
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod]
public string[] getNamesForDropDown(string prefixText, int count) 
{
   String sql = "Select fldName From idAccountReps Where idAccount = " + count.ToString();
   //... rest of the method removed, this should be enough code to understand
   //... the evil wrongness I did. 
}

in my front side aspx file, i set the CompletionSetCount based off the Account id the user is currently viewing on that page. 

<ajaxtk:AutoCompleteExtender 
    runat="server" 
    ID="AC1" 
    TargetControlID="txtAccName"
    ServiceMethod="getNamesForDropDown"
    ServicePath="AccountInfo.asmx"
    MinimumPrefixLength="1" 
    EnableCaching="true"
    CompletionSetCount='<%# Eval("idAccount") %>'
/>

So, that's definitely a wrong way... what would be the right way?

Solution

  • azam has the right idea- but the signature of the autocomplete method can also have a third parameter:

    public string[] yourmethod(string prefixText, int count, string contextKey)

    you can Split up the results of the contextKey string using Azam's method- but this way you do not have to worry about sanatizing the user's input of the .Split()'s delimiter (:)