Populating InfoPath Drop down with SharePoint List Data

Hard coding values in InfoPath drop down list box is easy but you can also populate it with dynamic data. Data can be from an XML file, a database or even a SharePoint list. This article shows how you can populate the list box with data from a SharePoint list with out writing a line of code.

http://walisystems.com/articles/SPS/dropdown/populating_infopath_drop_down_wi.htm

InfoPath: Reading from a repeating table

I will start with the code first and then explain what's happening.

Code:

 XPathNavigator DOM = this.MainDataSource.CreateNavigator();

XPathNodeIterator nodes = DOM.Select("/my:myFields/my:RepeatingGroup", this.NamespaceManager);

              XPathNavigator nodesNavigator = nodes.Current;
              XPathNodeIterator nodesText = nodesNavigator.SelectDescendants(XPathNodeType.Element, false);

             string FirstName = "";

             string LastName = "";

              while (nodesText.MoveNext())
              {
                  if (nodesText.Current.Name == "my:FirstName")
                  {
                         FirstName = nodesText.Current.Value.ToString();
                  }

                  nodesText.MoveNext();

                 if (nodesText.Current.Name == "my:LastName")
                 {
                       LastName= nodesText.Current.Value.ToString();
                 }

        }
         

              nodesText = null;
              nodesNavigator = null;
              nodes = null;
             DOM = null;

Explanation:

It's a very commong scenario. Developers want to read from the repeating table programmatically. The above code just does that. You take the XPath for the repeating group and create a nodes iterator object. This will iterate through all the descendant nodes. If the node type (XPathNodeType) is "Element", the value will be read into a string variable. That's it. Use MoveNext() to move to the next node in the hierarchy. It's as simple as that!