How to create and use a table-based valuelist

Table Values (all values from a certain table)

Although custom values are very easy to use many developers will want to use the table value option instead. The custom values are hard-coded into the application and should their value change then a new build is inevitable.

Suppose we have a customer table (you may want to create it in your test database) with a country field (type integer) and a country table with the following fields:

We want to add a combobox to our form that shows the countrycode and the countryname seperated by a "-". Furthermore the numeric identity of the country should be stored in the customer table. Now in VFP that wouldn't be too much code would it? In Servoy no code is required at all! Follow these steps:

Create a country table as shown above
Click on the database in the Solution Explorer
Select the country table in the List View (lower left corner) and right-click it
From the menu select Create new form
Click the Next button and select the three columns
Make sure the checkboxes are checked as in the screenshot below

Press Finish and run the form
Add a few countries
Create a new Valuelist as described in the previous walkthrough
Use the settings shown below:

As you can see the first two columns (country_code and country_name) have been checked to be shown in the field/list (combobox). Also you can see that in the seperator field " - " has been specified that the two columns should be seperated by a - (surrounded with spaces). Finally the third column (country_id) has been specified as the column from which the value is to be used to store in the database (vfp: bound column). This is done by checking Return in dataprovider.

Next we want to add a combobox to our form that use the valuelist:

From the toolbar click the textbox button
Select the country field from the customer table and press Ok

Select the country textbox control in your form
Change the displayType property to COMBOBOX
Fill the valuelist property with the Countries valuelist you just made
Set the horizontalAlignment property to LEFT
Run the form

External resources:

vfp plugin

ServoyWorld 2012 pics

Official Servoy website

Contents: