[SalesForce] Apex:selectList value – How to set it initially

I have a complicated problem so i'm hoping to ask this question generically:

I see a lot of examples that mostly work just fine with SelectList and SelectOptions.

My particular problem is that i can not get the SelectOptions dropdown menu to display the value i want as the "selected" (or saved) value upon the page rendering.

For example, i get a record from the db with "Relationship" = "Sister" and i want the dropdown to show "Sister".

My dropdown menu is built from a SOQL query and would have

"Mother"
"Father"
"Sister"
"Brother"
“Spouse”

and shown in the window (size=1)

But when the page renders, the top value ("Mother") is always shown rather than the "Sister" (3rd value in dropdown – list with size=1 window) no matter how i try to set it (i've tried about 4000 variations).

Can anyone show me an example of this working? Am i misunderstanding something? This seems so simple but i've been battling this for days.
Thank you!!

OK Here's the controller class code.

I load the page with an applicant ID passed in the URL. I go load that applicant record and display it. The "relationship" value is set from that applicant record.

Please note:

  1. When i build the dropdown list i do not hardcode the values for the dropdown menu like all the examples out there. I go to my database and pull them out and dynamically build the list from MyDBList__c entries.

    I think this is the source of the problem something screwy about this because if i hardcode them, everything is fine!

  2. The last item on the page displays the "relationship" correctly in the outputText. The Dropdown, however, does not.

  3. I have all the extra containers on the page to mimic what i have in my system…I left them so i know none of those are the problem.

  4. applicant.relationship__c is a lookup field to the Name in MyDBList__c (from which the dropdown was built).

Controller

public class TVTestControllerClass
{
   public string selectedValue {get;set;}
   public Applicant__c applicant;
   public ID applicantID {get; set;}

   //call ?applicantID=a0N11000004wsh3 to set my applicant
   public TVTestControllerClass(){
     applicantID   = ApexPages.currentPage().getParameters().get('ApplicantID'); 
   }


   //the values for the dropdown come from here
   public SelectOption[] getselectValues() {     
         SelectOption[] options = new SelectOption[]{};
         for(MyDBList__c oneRelationship : [SELECT Id, Name FROM MyDBList__c]) {
             options.add(new SelectOption(
                 String.valueOf(oneRelationship.Id),oneRelationship.Name));                 
         } 
         return options;           
    } 

    public Applicant__c getApplicant() {
        //selectedValue = 'Brother';//default as anything so i know didn't work
        //CORRECTION: This should have been something equiv to this...
        selectedValue = 'a0H1100000B3bFfEAJ';
        applicant = 
               [SELECT Id, Name, //Name is type Text[80]
                   applicantFirstName__c, 
                   relationship__c,
                   relationship__r.Name
                FROM Applicant__c
                WHERE Id = :applicantID];

        //selectedValue = applicant.relationship__r.Name;
        //CORRECTION: This SHOULD have been
        selectedValue = String.valueOf(applicant.relationship__c);


        return applicant;
    }//end getApplicant


}//end TVTestControllerClass

Page

<apex:page controller="TVTestControllerClass" sidebar="false"  showHeader="false">
 <apex:form id="applicantForm" >
 <apex:pageBlock >

 <apex:outputPanel styleClass="panelWrapper" layout="block">

 <apex:outputPanel id="ApplicantDetailPanel">
    <apex:pageblocksection id="ApplicantDetail" columns="1" > 

         <apex:pageBlockSectionItem>
            <apex:outputLabel value="First Name" />
            <apex:inputField value="{!applicant.applicantFirstName__c}"/>
         </apex:pageBlockSectionItem >  

         <apex:pageBlockSectionItem id="ApplRelBlock">
            <apex:outputLabel value="Relationship"/>
                <apex:outputPanel layout="block"> 
                    <apex:actionRegion >
                        <apex:selectList value="{!selectedvalue}" size="1" multiselect="false">
                           <apex:selectOptions value="{!selectValues}"/>
                        </apex:selectList>
                        <apex:actionSupport event="onchange" reRender="testingApplR2VID"/>
                    </apex:actionRegion>
                </apex:outputPanel>
        </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>

        <apex:pageBlockSectionItem id="testingApplR2VID">
            <apex:outputLabel value="selectedValue="/>
            <apex:outputText value="{!selectedValue}"/>
        </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>
    </apex:pageblocksection>
  </apex:outputPanel>
  </apex:outputPanel>
  </apex:pageBlock>
  </apex:form>
</apex:page>

Best Answer

You need to set the value that the select list is bound to..

public class mytest{
    public string selectedValue {get;set;}

   public class mytest(){
     selectedValue = 'Sister';
   }

   public SelectOption[] getselectValues(){
      return New SelectOption[]{
            New SelectOption('Mother','Mother'),
            New SelectOption('Sister','Sister'),
            New SelectOption('Father','Father')

      }
   }
}

Page

<apex:selectList value="{!selectedvalue}" size="1" multiselect="false">
   <apex:selectOptions value="{!selectValues}"/>
</apex:selectList>

Note in the constructor I set the value of selectedValue to the value I want the select list to be set to.

Key: That bound value must be set to the VALUE and not the LABEL of the Select Option.

For example:

if the select option was SelectOption('A','Sister') then selectedValue needs to be set to A and not Sister.

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