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Basically a button's tag property is the name of an existing combobox which I need to dynamically reference. It's a generic function to handle multiple buttons. Help

private void SQLButton(object sender, EventArgs e) { magic(((Button)sender).Tag.ToString()); } private void magic(string currentcombo) { string CurrentText = (ComboBox).(currentcombo).Text; }
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6 Answers 6

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You can set the Tag property to the actual ComboBox and avoid your problem altogether.

//code when defining your button... { sqlButton.Tag = comboBoxA; //instead of comboBoxA.Name } private void SQLButton(object sender, EventArgs e) { Button button = sender as Button; ComboBox comboBox = button.Tag as ComboBox; if (comboBox == null ) {...} else { magic(comboBox); } } private void magic(ComboBox currentcombo) { string CurrentText = currentcombo.Text; }
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4 Comments

how do I do that?, that seems to be an interesting approach.
Tag can be anything. So when you set the Tag of your button to comboBoxA.Name just use comboBoxA instead.
So I can use comboBoxA.Text and that will retrieve the current contents and pass it on to the method; private void SQLButton(object sender, EventArgs e){ magic(((Button)sender).Tag);}
thanks, this.button1.Tag = sourceComboBox.Text; Simple Solution
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I think I understand what you're after -

You'll want to change your "magic" routine to something like:

private void magic(string currentCombo) { ComboBox box = this.Controls.Find(currentCombo) as ComboBox; if(box != null) { // You can do your "work" here... string currentText = box.Text; } }
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3 Comments

Should be a (ComboBox)-cast instead of using as ... you don't want to get a NullRef-exception instead of a Cast-exception
I prefer this way, personally. I added a null check for you, though.
Yeah, with null-check I like it more, too :)
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If you have the string id value of a control then you can use FindControl to get a reference to the control.

Something like ...

Button btn = (Button)FindControl("some_id");
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I don't know if its winforms or asp.net. I am assuming it to be winforms

You could use this.Controls(theNameofTheControl) instead of magic.

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Have a look at the Controls.Find Method, to get the instance of the Control using the name.

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If currentcombo paramter in magic function is the identifier for the control you are going to change then use Page's function FindControl:

string CurrentText = ((ComboBox)FindControl(currentcombo)).Text;

Page.FindControl() method searches the page naming container for a server control with the specified identifier.

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FindControl doest not exist in the curren context? (am I missing a reference? using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms;