InfoPath Dev

is there a way to force a drop down in a repeating table to only add items in order. Say my items consist of:

apple, bannana, grapes, lemons, oranges

I can make any selection I want, but not matter what is selected or how many are selected the order will remain the same. with a 3 row table I could have one in each row in this order

apple,  lemons, oranges

or

 bannana, lemons, oranges

but never

 bannana,apple, grapes

can this be achieved out of the box? Even something along the lines or reordering the rows after items are entered.

Keep the display values as apple, banana, grapes, lemons, oranges, etc, but change the dropdown *value* to be 1, 2, 3, etc. Make sure it's ordered and ascending.

Add a validation rule that fires if the value of the preceding-sibling is > the current value.

That might just do it...

Thanks P,

so by adding the validation rule will force the user to change the order of the items, correct. Do I have to set the valuse to a number. can I add a hidden field and set that field to the ordered number. I know I wont be a clean validation, but I need the names of the fruit selected.