ASP.NET filter results with checkboxes

I have a list of about 20 products, each with up to 30 possible attributes. I’m trying to figure out the best way to use checkboxes (representing开发者_JAVA技巧 the 30 possible attributes) on a form to filter the products, so that only products with the matching attributes would be shown. I can use SQL Server 2005, but it seems like that might be overkill. Any suggestions?

(Additional) Edit: Ok, given the data structure below, how would you query the database to return products that have ALL of the matching features? Say Product #1 has features 1, 2 and 3. Product # 2 has features 2, 3 and 4. A query for features 1 and 3 should return Product #1, but not Product #2.

Products table
productID int
productname nvarchar(50)

Features table
featureID int
featurename nvarchar(50)

FeatureMap table
featuremapID int
productID_fk int
featureID_fk int

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First you would gather the properties that the user selected from your UI

List<string> filter = this.GetAttributeFilterFromUI();
string featureNamesParam = "(" + string.Join(",", filter) + ")";

Then you should be able to use a parameterized query, whose SQL would be something like:

SELECT ProductID FROM Products P
JOIN FeatureMap FM ON FM.ProductID = P.ProductID
WHERE FM.featureID_fk IN
(SELECT FeatureID FROM Features WHERE featurename IN @FeatureNames)

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The database would work fine for this. If the attributes for your products is fixed, you can create a single table with your product Id/Name and each attribute would be in a column with boolean/bit types named "IsGreen", "IsBlue", "HasWarrant", etc. If you think atrributes may be added or removed over time, you'll want to setup an "Attribute", "Product" and "ProductAttribute" tables to match up the products and attributes accordingly.

You can then setup your ASP.Net web page to use a CheckBoxList control that has all of the options available. You can then go through the list of check box items in this list to determine which values have been selected and setup your database query from there.

If you want a "dynamic" approach to your search results, set the AutoPostBack property of the CheckBoxList to "true" and then every time a check box is selected or deselected, the SelectedIndexChanged will be triggered and you can update your search results accordingly. This way the user doesn't have to press a "search" button every time.

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Hi SQL Server is not overkilling, you can use it very easily to create the Product table and insert the data. After you tell us the schema you have created for your table we could see how to handle this.