It seems that the only way to get around this is to modify the xsl for the view and use the substring method (other than creating a feature or workflow to concatenate 2 columns in a column which isn't of type calculated column)
The only problem with the substring method is that I get the following error:
The SOAP response indicates that an error occurred on the server:
Server was unable to process request. ---> Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key
The section of the stylesheet with the substring function added is:
<tr style="MIN-HEIGHT: 26px">
<td style="BORDER-RIGHT: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-RIGHT: 1px; BORDER-TOP: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-LEFT: 1px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top; BORDER-LEFT: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-TOP: 1px; BORDER-BOTTOM: #969696 1pt solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ebf0f9">
<div>
<font size="2">
<strong>19.</strong>
</font>
</div>
</td>
<td style="BORDER-RIGHT: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-RIGHT: 5px; BORDER-TOP: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top; BORDER-LEFT: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-TOP: 1px; BORDER-BOTTOM: #969696 1pt solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #cbd8eb">
<div>
<font size="2">Default Regulation</font>
</div>
</td>
<td style="BORDER-RIGHT: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-RIGHT: 1px; BORDER-TOP: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 1px; VERTICAL-ALIGN: middle; BORDER-LEFT: #969696 1pt solid; PADDING-TOP: 1px; BORDER-BOTTOM: #969696 1pt solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #f2f2f2">
<div>
<font color="#ff0000">
<select class="xdComboBox xdBehavior_Select" title="" style="WIDTH: 412px" size="1" xd:CtrlId="CTRL416" xd:xctname="dropdown" xd:binding="my:Stage1/my:part19/my:p19defaultRegulation" xd:boundProp="value" value="" tabIndex="0">
<xsl:attribute name="value">
<xsl:value-of select="my:Stage1/my:part19/my:p19defaultRegulation"/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:choose>
<xsl:when test="function-available('xdXDocument:GetDOM')">
<option/>
<xsl:variable name="val" select="my:Stage1/my:part19/my:p19defaultRegulation"/>
<xsl:if test="not(my:Data_Connections/my:RegulationGroup[my:REGULATION=$val] or $val='')">
<option selected="selected">
<xsl:attribute name="value">
<xsl:value-of select="$val"/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:value-of select="$val"/>
</option>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:variable name="items">
<xsl:copy-of select="my:Data_Connections/my:RegulationGroup"/>
</xsl:variable>
<xsl:variable name="uniqueItems" select="msxsl:node-set($items)/*[not(my:REG_CODE_AND_DESC = preceding::my:RegulationGroup/my:REG_CODE_AND_DESC)]"/>
<xsl:for-each select="$uniqueItems">
<option>
<xsl:attribute name="value">
<xsl:value-of select="my:REGULATION"/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:if test="$val=my:REGULATION">
<xsl:attribute name="selected">selected</xsl:attribute>
</xsl:if>
<xsl:value-of select="substring(my:REG_CODE_AND_DESC, 9)"/>
</option>
</xsl:for-each>
</xsl:when>
<xsl:otherwise>
<option>
<xsl:value-of select="my:Stage1/my:part19/my:p19defaultRegulation"/>
</option>
</xsl:otherwise>
</xsl:choose>
</select>
</font>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
Has anybody else had this problem and if so, how have you worked around it? Getting desperate on this one now!