How to use comma separated lists with parameters in sqldatasource?

I'm new (very new) to asp.net and now at 3am after maybe 12 straight hours of trying to go through examples and understand the syntax, I have a somewhat working program... basically a query parameters screen that upon a click generates a report. The query parameter screen basically is a HTML form with a procedure that puts the field values into session variables. The report uses <asp:sessionparameters> in the sqldatasource to apply aforementioned session variables to filter the SELECT statement's results. They are then displayed using the gridview control. It actually works!

Now I'm trying to figure out: if I need/want my users to be able to enter comma-separated list of values into the HTML form field and somehow get these into the SELECT statement's WHERE clause, is there a way to do this? I'm not very experienced with asp nor sql server and have been struggling with this new challenge. I really could use pointers as to whether there's an easy way to handle this. In other languages in the past I would have had to parse the comma-separated list and use those to construct my SELECT statement programmatically. I get the impression that with all this ASP.NET fanciness, there has to be a better way?

If it matters, I'm using ASP.NET 2.0 with SQL Server 2005 Express and Visual Studio Web 2005 Express.

Thanks in advance for any replies, they would be GREATLY appreciated :)

Hi,

you either generate the SQL query programmatically based on the CSV, e.g split the CSV string with the delimiter, loop the array returned by String.Split and then buold the SQl string dynamically. Other way is to create a stored procedure to the Db and use functions to split CSVs for example:http://www.sqlteam.com/item.asp?ItemID=11499