My question is a design question : let's say i have a data entry web page with 4 drop down lists, each depending on the previous one, and a bunch of text boxes. country (ddl), state (ddl), city (ddl), boro (ddl), address (txtBox), zipcode(txtbox). and an object that represents a datarow with a value for each. naturally the country, state, city and boro values will be values of primary keys of some lookup tables. when the user chooses to edits that record, i would load it from database and load it into the page. the issue that I have is how to streamline loading the ddls. i have some code that would grab the object, look thru its values and move them to their corresponding input controls in one shot. but in this case i will have to load possible values of country, then assign values, then load values of state, then assign value ans so on. I guess i am looking for an elegant solution. i am using asp.net, but i think it is irrelevant to the question. i am looking more into a design pattern. thanks