I have a GridView with an edit item as dropdownlist:

<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="State" SortExpression="StateCode">
                    <ItemTemplate>
                        <asp:Label runat="server" ID="lblState"  Text='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "StateCode") %>'></asp:Label>
                    </ItemTemplate>
                    <EditItemTemplate>
                        <asp:DropDownList ID="ddlState" SelectedValue='<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "StateID") %>' DataSourceID="LLBLGenProDataSourceState" DataTextField="StateName" DataValueField="StateID" runat="server">
                            [b]<asp:ListItem Text="Select State..." Value="0"></asp:ListItem>[/b]
                        </asp:DropDownList>
                    </EditItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>

My LLBLGenProDataSource is like this:

<cc1:LLBLGenProDataSource
        ID="LLBLGenProDataSourceState"
        DataContainerType="EntityCollection"
        EntityCollectionTypeName="DHHS.Core.DAL.CollectionClasses.StateCollection, DHHS.Core.DAL" 
        runat="server">
    </cc1:LLBLGenProDataSource>

My problem is in the state dropdown first row "Select State..." is not coming.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance .

Shabab

Databinding will override any static values you set. What you can do is to use the following to insert the value when the row is being edited. This is for a Grid named GridView1.

                protected void GridView1_RowDataBound(object sender, GridViewRowEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.Row.RowType == DataControlRowType.DataRow && e.Row.RowIndex == GridView1.EditIndex)
            {
                //e.Row.DataBind();
                DropDownList ddl = (DropDownList)e.Row.FindControl("ddlState");
                ddl.Items.Insert(0, new ListItem("Select Name", "Select Name"));
            }
        }
        }

ASP.NET related issue: an ASP.NET dropdownlist has a property which allows you to specify th ADD databound elements to the already existing elements. That property can be set in the HTML using the AppendDataBoundItems attribute.