What are 2 ways to populate a drop down datawindow?

If the main DW is external (not SQL) DDDW has always to be populated by calling RETRIEVE as at the p.2
Lev

You can assign select command later (to external DW's) using setsqlselect or modify (datawindow.table.select). Then the DDDW tries to retrieve data as though to be set in the painter. But is is better to fabricate a SQL Select, otherwise is should not have any retrieval argument. For example "select convert(varchar(20),'') as my_column1, .... from row_generator". You are able to define retrieval arguments, even if they are not used. They can be used when we will set sqlselect in runtime.

as I get your Hink point,
if you setsql to external DW, it would trigger retrieve?
Or I misundenstand some? Lev

Yes, You will obtain SQL Error like "Empty SQL command". But DW Painter doesn't allow to use DW as DDDW, when it doesn't have select of procedure datasource (when it is external). The source SQL must be present. You can obtain this error only when You will assign the DDDW at runtime.

For example: dwo.colname.dddw.name="d_samle_external_dw".

When main DW is retrieved (or first row is inserted), it tries to retrieve all DDDW's that are still empy (have no rows). Before it, You can set another SQL command or retrieve it with arguments if needed (or both).

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SpideyMod
Community Support Moderator @Experts Exchange