InfoPath Dev

Lets say you have a drop down "Fruit" that has the choices "Apples", "Oranges" and the standard blank a.k.a. Select...A user creates and saves an xml form where Fruit is set to "Orange".

Now, lets say I change the XSN so the choices become "Apples" and "Grapes". When the user reopens their xml, Fruit is still equal to "Orange" which is no longer a valid selection.

I understand the choices are to 

1) Change the Input to "Fruit1".

2) Place in a Data Validation that flags if Fruit = "Orange" or if Fruit is other than "Apple", "Grapes" or blank.

3) Have a rule when opening the form that sets Fruit =  blank if Fruit = "Orange" or if Fruit is other than "Apple", "Grapes" or blank.

Are there any other choices besides theses? The three choices seem simple but quickly become complex when dealing with several controls and several changes within them.

I'm hoping there is a easier way to deal with backwards compatibility as I'm sure changing drop down selections is not uncommon.

 Thanks,

That's not normal - it should update when the template is changed.

The xml form does update with the new selection of "Apples" and "Grapes". However, the orange selection is still stored in its xml. It doesn't remove it.

I'm sure this is now an uncommon issue as its basically updating a pull down. What does eveyone else do when their pull down values have to be changed? How do you deal with backwards compatibility?

Hi admot, 

First of all, normally you wouldn't want to change the data that a user has selected when the form was created in the first place.

But if that is possible in your case, I would recommend to do a check on submission to check whether the dropdown item selected by the user exists in the retrieved list or not. Be careful that the list of "Fruits" should come from an external source such as a SharePoint list, otherwise you won't be able to read the dropdown items if you have defined the items manually.