ttk.combobox List of choices

Question

I would like to know if I can get a clue for this.

I receive a recordset from a table, whose fields are id, desc.

I would like to show the "values" on a combobox, but the variable I want to receive after a selection is the correspondent "id".

I can create a list with the id, and a list with desc

I can send "values" to the combo, but ... how can i una a combobox for showing the values and receiving the id?

def loadCombo(self):    
    sql = "SELECT id, desc FROM table"
    misq = conn.query2(sql)
    misc , misv = [] , []
    for xx in misq:
        misv.append(xx["desc"])
        misc.append(xx["id"])`

    self.box = ttk.Combobox(self.master, textvariable=self.idquiniela, state="readonly", choices=misc, values=misv )
    self.box.pack()

I get an error with choices!

Thank you

Answer 1

My first thought is to use a dictionary instead of lists. If you have the two lists for other reasons, you can turn them into a dictionary via:

ids = ['Hello', 'World', 'Foo', 'Bar']
vals = [64, 8, 4, 2]
mydict = dict(list(zip(ids,vals)))

Once you have the dictionary, you can use mydict[combobox.get()] when you query the combobox. If you're going to need this functionality in several other places, then you may want to create a custom version of the Combobox, a la:

from tkinter import Tk
from tkinter import ttk

class NewCBox(ttk.Combobox):
    def __init__(self, master, dictionary, *args, **kw):
        ttk.Combobox.__init__(self, master, values = sorted(list(dictionary.keys())), state = 'readonly', *args, **kw)
        self.dictionary = dictionary
        self.bind('<<ComboboxSelected>>', self.selected) #purely for testing purposes

    def value(self):
        return self.dictionary[self.get()]

    def selected(self, event): #Just to test
        print(self.value())

lookup = {'Hello': 64, 'World' : 8, 'Foo': 4, 'Bar': 2}
root = Tk()
newcb = NewCBox(root, lookup)
newcb.pack()

And then just use the 'value()' method instead of 'get()'

Answer 2

Based on Reid his answer I coded this new combobox class, but in a way that the get() method is still available. Thought I would share it for those looking for a similar thing:)

from tkinter.ttk import Combobox

class NewCombobox(Combobox):
    """
    Because the classic ttk Combobox does not take a dictionary for values.
    """

    def __init__(self, master, dictionary, *args, **kwargs):
        Combobox.__init__(self, master,
                          values=sorted(list(dictionary.keys())),
                          *args, **kwargs)
        self.dictionary = dictionary

    def get(self):
        if Combobox.get(self) == '':
            return ''
        else:
            return self.dictionary[Combobox.get(self)]