I have some Items in a ComboBox. Each Item has an Id and a name.
______________
│_____________▼│
│111 Simon │
│222 Patrick │
│3333 John │
│155555 Ted │
└──────────────┘
I need to pass the Id of the selected item to a stored procedure. I will have to Parse part of the item to get only the Id. My problem is, how can I do this when I don't know the length of the Id. (It can be from 1 to 100 characters).
You can just split on the space character and take the first result:
var id = comboBox.SelectedText.Split(' ')[0]; // Using array index
var id = comboBox.SelectedText.Split(' ').First(); // Using LINQ
As an aside:
ComboBox class I'd recommend using the ValueMember property to store the ID and then using this rather than just using the displayed text.ComboBox you can use the SelectedItem property to access the ID.ComboBox you can use the SelectedItem proeprty to access the ID.
You have to fill the items into the combobox so that:
comboboxName.DataSource = ds;
comboboxName.ValueMember = "Id";
comboboxName.DisplayMember = "Name";
Otherwise use comboboxName.SelectedText.Split(' '); to get these values.
111 Simon │222 Patrick │ 3333 John, etc you should fill it so that you have a list of id's and names then bind it to the datasource property of the combobox as I explained in this answer.Try this:
var foo = str.Split(' '); //from 111 Simon will get '111'
var id = foo.Length > 1 ? foo[0] : null;
if(id != null) {
//do something with '111';
} else {
//error
}
EDIT
I recommend you do it by using a custom Combobox class:
public class Foo
{
public string Text { get; set; }
public int Value { get; set; }
public Foo(int id, string name)
{
Value = id;
Text = name;
}
public override string ToString()
{
return Text;
}
}
And then add the object(foo) into combobox:
comboBox1.Items.Add(new Foo(111, "simon"));
And then you can access the values by casting SelectedItem property to your class:
//assuming that comboBox1.SelectedText is "simon", the following is true:
var val = (Foo)comboBox1.SelectedItem;
val.Value // 111
val.Text // simon
Try String.Split on the selected response. That will split the text of the selected item at the space. You should get a two-element array, with the first member being the id you represent above.
More broadly, though, you might consider modifying your solution to place the value in the .ValueMember property, and the name in the .DisplayMember property (eliminating the need to parse anything). See if your listbox implementation doesn't support that.
Good luck!
comboBox1.SelectedText.Split(' ')