ComboBox Data Binding Overview

The Telerik WebForm ComboBox supports binding to data both on Server and on Client.

Data sources can support both hierarchical and non-hierarchical structures. The ComboBox, however, only works with a flat structure - items cannot contain children.

Client-side Data Binding

• Binding to RadClientDataSource
• Loading items from Web Service
• Binding to OData

Server-side Data Binding

• Binding to ASP DataSource components
• Binding to Collections
• Loading items from XML

Appending Data Bound Items

RadComboBox exposes the AppendDataBoundItems property (default False). If you bind the RadComboBox using the DataBind method, all RadComboBox items are automatically cleared.

By setting AppendDataBoundItems to True preserves the items that are already present in RadComboBox. This lets you bind RadComboBox to multiple data sources or use both unbound and bound modes.