Streamlit: customizing values in sidebar.selectbox()

Question

Is there a way to show a name alias in the streamlit st.sidebar.selectbox()?

So for example:

raw_names = st.sidebar.selectbox(
    'Name:', get_name_list(), key='port'
)
    
def get_name_list() -> list:
    return ("Name A" ==  "A949", "Name B" ==  "B384")

And then, what is used for raw_names is only the second element of the list (so "A949" or "B384").

I have done this in a shiny app but not sure if possible with Streamlit as well.

Answer 1

Yes, you can use the format_func argument of selectbox.

format_func

Function to modify the display of the labels. It receives the option as an argument and its output will be cast to str.

Source: the Streamlit documentation.

You can use it like this:

import streamlit as st

d_convert = {
    "A949": "Name A",
    "B384": "Name B",
}

def convert_option(opt):
    return d_convert[opt]

raw_name = st.sidebar.selectbox(
    'Name:', d_convert.keys(), key='port', format_func=convert_option
)

st.write(f"You chose {raw_name}")

It gives: