Populate Drop Down List Box (DDLB) with two values in PowerBuilder - string

Question

I've created a Drop Down List Box (DDLB) in my window (I'm using PowerBuilder 10.5). Once I would call my function, the DDLB would fill with all the different cities from my table. This is the code I've used:
FOR li_i=1 TO ii_br_red
ls_city = dw_city.GetItemString(li_i, 'city')
IF ddlb_city.FindItem(ls_city, 1) = -1 THEN
ddlb_city.AddItem(ls_city) END IF; NEXT
Next part of the code is in the ddlb "selectionchanged" event...
dw_city.SetFilter("city = '" + this.text + "'")
dw_city.Filter()
This works great, and after calling my function (via click on a command button) I'd get a list of all different cities in my table, ex.
Paris
London
New York
Washington
No town would be listed twice.
What I need to do now is add a country next to every city in my DDLB. So that after clicking my command button I would get this in my DDLB:
Paris (France)
London (GB)
New York (USA)
Washington (USA)
Any advice? Thanks in advance...
SECOND QUESTION, similar to this subject: I have an SQL code:
SELECT distinct name FROM table1;
This gives me 8 different names. What I want to do is fill another DDLB, ddlb_1 with these names, but this must occur on the open event of my program. This is what I've written in the open event of my program:
string ls_name
SELECT distinct name INTO :ls_name FROM tabel1;
ddlb_1.AddItem(ls_name)
But this only gives me the first name. I'm guessing I need some kind of count, but I just can't pull it off.

Answer 1

If you do not want to change the design of the program, and as you states that the country is in the same DW, you could hack the code a little to add the country to the ddlb (I suppose that the country is available on the same row of the dw):
String ls_country
FOR li_i=1 TO ii_br_red
ls_city = dw_city.GetItemString(li_i, 'city')
IF ddlb_city.FindItem(ls_city, 1) = -1 THEN
ls_country = dw_city.GetItemString(li_i, 'country')
ddlb_city.AddItem(ls_city + ' (' + ls_country + ')')
END IF
NEXT
A quick and dirty hack to get back the value in the event to filter the DW would be
int p
string ls_city
ls_city = this.text
p = pos(ls_city, '(')
if p > 0 then ls_city = left(ls_city, p - 2) //skip the "space + (country)" part
dw_city.SetFilter("city = '" + ls_city + "'")
dw_city.Filter()
But this kind of code is difficult to maintain and should be replaced by something else, as the processing of the city value is strongly coupled to its representation in the list.
A better solution would be a dropdowndatawindow, or (worse) an array of the cities names where the index of a city + country in the ddlb would correspond to the index of the bare city name suitable for filtering the DW

Answer 2

I think you should modify the "source" datawindow' select, and you should get the final result which you want, and you would only need to copy the datas from the datawindow to the ddlb. You should use distinct in the select something like this:
select distinct city + ' (' + country_code + ')' from cities_and_countries_table
of course you should replace the "city", "country_code" to the actual column name in your table as well the table-name. With this you will get every city only once and they will be already concatenated with the country code.
Br. Gábor

Answer 3

Does it really have to be DDLB? I would give the user a Single Line Edit for the city name and filter the DW as the user types.

Answer 4

To answer my own second question, this is how I've done it finally...
String ls_name
DECLARE xy CURSOR FOR
SELECT distinct name FROM table1;
OPEN xy;
FETCH xy INTO :ls_name;
do until sqlca.sqlcode <> 0
ddlb_1.AddItem(ls_name);
FETCH xyINTO :ls_name;
loop
CLOSE xy;

Answer 5

I'm new to PowerBuilder, But I just used that kind of scenario, however I used a DDW (Drop Down Data Window) Instead of a List Box On this case, you can display more than one column as soon as the DW gets the focus and you'd be able to dynamically populate the data. Give it a try. It worked for me, DW's are a pain in the neck when you're just starting (as in my case) but you can do a lot with it