Introduction:
This
article shows how to create and use AutoCompleteExtender to display Country
and States. When you are typing in txtCountry, it will list out all country
names that start with the typed characters, and then when you are typing in txtStates, it
will list out all States for that Country (txtCountry).
Step 1:
Create a table for Country and State
tbl_country
Table
Create Table tbl_Country
(
Cid Int Primary Key,
cname Varchar(30)
)
tbl_state Table
Create Table tbl_State
(
sid Int Primary Key,
cid Int Foreign Key References tbl_Country(cid),
sname Varchar(30)
)
![1.gif]()
Now drag
and drop the two textboxes and two AutoCompleteExtenders
.aspx
code :
In the
below source code I used JQuery to pass id of the country to another
autocomplete extender (acestate).
eventArgs.get_value() The method will return
id of selected country (acecountry).
TargetControlID:
The textbox control where user type content to be
automatically completed.
OnClientItemSelected:
It will call the client side javascript method to set contexKey
to another AutoCompleteExtender(acestate).
<%@
Page Language="C#"
AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs"
Inherits="_Default"
%>
<%@
Register Assembly="AjaxControlToolkit"
Namespace="AjaxControlToolkit"
TagPrefix="cc1"
%>
<!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></title>
<script
src="jquery-1.5.min.js"
type="text/javascript"></script>
<script
type="text/javascript">
function IAmSelected(source, eventArgs) {
$find('acestate').set_contextKey(eventArgs.get_value());
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<form
id="form1"
runat="server">
<div>
<asp:ScriptManager
runat="server"
ID="sc">
<Services>
<asp:ServiceReference
Path="~/WebService.asmx"
/>
</Services>
</asp:ScriptManager>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<asp:Label
Text="Country"
ID="lblcountry"
runat="server"></asp:Label>
</td>
<td>
<asp:UpdatePanel
runat="server"
ID="Up1"
UpdateMode="Conditional">
<ContentTemplate>
<asp:TextBox
runat="server"
ID="txtcountry"></asp:TextBox>
<div>
<cc1:AutoCompleteExtender
runat="server"
ID="acecountry"
TargetControlID="txtcountry"
MinimumPrefixLength="1"
ServiceMethod="GetCountryList"
ServicePath="WebService.asmx"
EnableCaching="true"
OnClientItemSelected="IAmSelected">
</cc1:AutoCompleteExtender>
</div>
</ContentTemplate>
</asp:UpdatePanel>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<asp:Label
runat="server"
ID="lblstate"
Text="State"></asp:Label>
</td>
<td>
<asp:UpdatePanel
runat="server"
ID="up2"
UpdateMode="Conditional">
<ContentTemplate>
<asp:TextBox
runat="server"
ID="txtstate"></asp:TextBox>
<cc1:AutoCompleteExtender
runat="server"
ID="acestate"
TargetControlID="txtstate"
MinimumPrefixLength="1"
ServicePath="WebService.asmx"
UseContextKey="true"
ServiceMethod="GetStatesList"
</cc1:AutoCompleteExtender>
</ContentTemplate>
</asp:UpdatePanel>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>
Create one
webservice in the website, name it as WebService.cs. And add the two service
methods in that webservice. Here, the server side methods will return an array of
strings.
GetCountryList:
The below
method is used to get list of Country names from the database whose letters
starts with prefixText
Note :
Dont forget to add
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptService]
to Web service class,
because if want to access service through asp.net AJAX we have to add above line
[WebMethod]
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod]
public string[]
GetCountryList(string prefixText)
{
SqlConnection con =
new SqlConnection("connection
string");
SqlDataAdapter dad =
new SqlDataAdapter("select
cname,cid from tbl_country where cname like '" + prefixText +
"%'", con);
DataSet ds = new
DataSet();
dad.Fill(ds);
List<string>
list = new List<string>(ds.Tables[0].Rows.Count);
foreach (DataRow
dr in ds.Tables[0].Rows)
{
list.Add(AjaxControlToolkit.AutoCompleteExtender.CreateAutoCompleteItem(dr[0].ToString(),
dr[1].ToString()));
}
return list.ToArray();
}
GetStatesList: Used to get list of state for that
particular country from database. Here country id is availble in
ContextKey parameter of GetStatesList so that we can filter state by country id
and prefixText.
[WebMethod]
[System.Web.Script.Services.ScriptMethod]
public string[]
GetStatesList(string prefixText,
int count, string
contextKey)
{
SqlConnection con =
new SqlConnection("connection
string");
SqlDataAdapter dad =
new SqlDataAdapter("select
sname,sid from tbl_state where cid=" + contextKey +
"and sname like '" + prefixText +
"%'", con);
DataSet ds = new
DataSet();
dad.Fill(ds);
List<string>
list = new List<string>(ds.Tables[0].Rows.Count);
foreach (DataRow
dr in ds.Tables[0].Rows)
{
list.Add(AjaxControlToolkit.AutoCompleteExtender.CreateAutoCompleteItem(dr[0].ToString(),
dr[1].ToString()));
}
return list.ToArray();
}
Now run
the application and test it , first type 'I' letter in txtcountry textbox then
it will list out all country names whose letter statrs with 'I'.
![2.gif]()
Now type
'A' in txtstate textbox it will list out all state names for a particular
country (ex:India).
![3.gif]()
Note: It is very
important that you keep the signature of the method same as what given above.
The method must have two parameters namely.
- prefixText (string)
-
count
(int)
- contextKey(string)
Otherwise
the method won't work with AutoCompleteExtender. You can see the demo of this
article by downloading this application.