title: Find if value contains a string in a drop down list in vb.net
body: <p>I have a drop down list that looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server" AutoPostBack="True"&gt;
                          &lt;asp:ListItem Text="Text1" Value="6,08/04/2015,P"&gt;&lt;/asp:ListItem&gt;
                          &lt;asp:ListItem Text="Text2" Value="5,11/17/2014,S"&gt;&lt;/asp:ListItem&gt;
                          &lt;asp:ListItem Text="Text3" Value="4,05/26/2014,P"&gt;&lt;/asp:ListItem&gt;
                          &lt;asp:ListItem Text="Text4" Value="3,01/20/2014,A"&gt;&lt;/asp:ListItem&gt;
                          &lt;asp:ListItem Text="Text5" Value="2,10/31/2013,G"&gt;&lt;/asp:ListItem&gt;
                          &lt;asp:ListItem Text="Text6" Value="1,04/09/2013,P"&gt;&lt;/asp:ListItem&gt;
  &lt;/asp:DropDownList&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I need to be able to get a date from a database and try to automatically select the correct date from the drop down list. </p>
  
  <p>my code behind is as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>dim strDate as string = "10/31/2013"
  
  DropDownList1.selectedvalue.contains(strDate)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>something like that but it does not select the correct value from the drop down. </p>