How was that drop-down list filled? In HTML, the <selection> tag nests several <option> tags that represent the elements to be listed. The state abbreviations probably came from a database or some other well-established source. Somewhere (most likely at the server), some piece of code had to go through the collection of states and render <selection> and <output> tags for it.
ASP.NET server-side controls, such as the ListBox and the DropDownList, include Items collections. For example, one way to render a collection as a combo box is to declare a combo box on your ASP.NET page and add the items individually via the Items.Add method like so:
protected void BuildComboBox(IList techList)
{
for(int i = 0; i < techList.Count; i++)
{
this.DropDownList2.Items.Add(techList[i]);
}
}
Because representing collections as UI elements is such a prevalent programming task, it makes a lot of sense to push that down into the framework if at all possible. ASP.NET includes a number of databound controls that are capable of taking collections and rendering the correct tags for you. Let's see how this works.