Empty DataTextField property of DropDownList

Question

I have a DropDownList that is bound to sqlDataSource . Part of the SQL query is:

"Select (firstName +" "+ SecondName +" "+ LastName) AS Name"

DataTextField property of the DropDownList is set to Name .

The problem is: if any of ( firstName , SecondName , and LastName ) equal to NULL , the DataTextField property become empty.

How can I fix this?

Answer 1

I use something like this. You have to check for NULL values and replace them with an empty string. Finally I replace 2 spaces with 1 in the replace function to account for empty SecondNames.

SELECT REPLACE(ISNULL(firstName, '') + ' ' + ISNULL(SecondName, '') + ' ' + ISNULL(LastName, ''), '  ', ' ') AS Name