Basic question:

DropDownList1.SelectedItem.Value vs. DropDownList1.SelectedItem.Text

When do you use which one?

Can DropDownList1.SelectedItem.Text have both characters and numericals but DropDownList1.SelectedItem.Value is only for numericals?

Is the .Value one for CategoryIDs and the .Text for Text values?

What the exact use for this?

Both of these parameters accept strings. A string can take any letter or number, or other ASCII characters. You use whichever one you need. For example, what I'll do is show a list of options, and for the value I'll store the unique ID number in it, and then when the user selects an option, get the ID number from the value, and query the database for those results.

You use whatever one you want to, for your situation. Whatever action you are performing, do you need the text value or the ID? ID's are typically more precise if you are querying a database, because they are unique, where text values can duplicate. It depends on your need.

Remember too that there is another shortcut to the value in DropDownList1.SelectedValue.

Hope this helps,

Brian

Thanks