Sorting a DropDownList? - C#, ASP.NET

Question

I\'m curious as to the best route (more looking towards simplicity, not speed or efficiency) to sort a DropDownList in C#/ASP.NET - I\'ve looked at a few recommendations b

Answer 1

I agree with sorting using ORDER BY when populating with a database query, if all you want is to sort the displayed results alphabetically. Let the database engine do the work of sorting.

However, sometimes you want some other sort order besides alphabetical. For example, you might want a logical sequence like: New, Open, In Progress, Completed, Approved, Closed. In that case, you could add a column to the database table to explicitly set the sort order. Name it something like SortOrder or DisplaySortOrder. Then, in your SQL, you'd ORDER BY the sort order field (without retrieving that field).