AjaxControlToolkit AutoCompleteExtender ... how to fill from linq query? - asp.net

Question

Go easy... I'm a newbie at this.
Ok, I've added the AutoCompleteExtender to my webpage. The user will add search tags to a project, and I want the textbox to autocomplete with tags that already exist in the database.
I don't have a "registry" for tags; only a table with a tagName and a projectID. So, a tagName might be repeated many times in the table. So I just want to return distinct results in my query. (That's easy.)
But how do I tie it to the AutoCompleteExtender? I'm not well versed in WebServices, etc...
I'm using entity framework, fyi...
Here's my autocomplete code on the aspx page:
<asp:TextBox ID="TagNameTextBox" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>
<ajaxToolkit:AutoCompleteExtender ID="TagNameTextBox_AutoCompleteExtender"
runat="server"
ServiceMethod="GetCompletionList"
MinimumPrefixLength="2"
EnableCaching="false"
DelimiterCharacters=""
Enabled="True"
TargetControlID="TagNameTextBox">
</ajaxToolkit:AutoCompleteExtender>
And here's my linq query:
var qrygettags = (from t in db.TagTables
select new { t.TagName }).Distinct().ToString();
I found a few examples of a jquery solution, too, but I don't know how to get my query into that format. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Well, I kept hunting around and found this seemingly easy solution, and it works for me.
in the aspx page, in the control, I have
ServiceMethod="GetTagNames"
and in the cs page I added this in the page load:
[System.Web.Services.WebMethod]
public static string[] GetTagNames(string prefixText, int count)
{
mydatabase db = new mydatabase();
return db.TagTables.Where(n => n.TagName.StartsWith(prefixText)).OrderBy(n => n.TagName).Select(n => n.TagName).Distinct().Take(count).ToArray();
}
Hopefully it will help someone else out there!