Checking and assigning Checkbox values to a string in C#

Question

I'm brain tired and stumped so wanted to see if anyone knows a better way to do this:

I have 4 checkboxes that a user can select none, one, or all, or any combo. Then in the code behind I want to check all the CheckBoxes and if it's been selected then take it's value (text) and assign it to 1 string and separate it with a comma as necessary.

This works great but assigns all the .Text whether or not the items have been checked.

 if (CheckBox1.Checked || CheckBox2.Checked || CheckBox3.Checked || CheckBox4.Checked)
    {
      ClientString = CheckBox1.Text + ", " + CheckBox2.Text + ", " + CheckBox3.Text + ", " + CheckBox4.Text; 
    }

I'm staring at it and I know the solution is really simple but I'm too tired to think clearly right now and wanted to find out what I'm doing wrong. Code is C# (ASP.NET).

How do I poll the 4 CheckBoxes and if it's checked then assign it's value to the string and ignore it if it isn't checked?

Thanks.

Claudio Redi · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 20:30:48Z

6

What about something like this? (not tested)

For .NET 3.5

var checkboxList = new List<CheckBox>{CheckBox1,CheckBox2,CheckBox3,CheckBox4};
var messages = checkboxList
      .Where(x => x.Checked)
      .Select(x => x.Text)
      .ToArray();
ClientString = string.Join(", ", messages);

For .NET 4.0

var checkboxList = new List<CheckBox>{CheckBox1,CheckBox2,CheckBox3,CheckBox4};
var messages = checkboxList
      .Where(x => x.Checked)
      .Select(x => x.Text);
ClientString = string.Join(", ", messages);

edited Dec 21, 2011 at 20:30

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 20:17

Claudio Redi

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8 Comments

MBirchmeier Over a year ago

In your third line I don't believe it's necessary to call .ToArray() Join should be able to implicitly convert from an IEnumerable.

ahsteele Over a year ago

@MBirchmeier I too was under the impression you needed .ToArray() for .Join. I wonder where Claudio and I both came up with that. Here's a link to an answer about it: stackoverflow.com/a/122760/61654.

Claudio Redi Over a year ago

@MBirchmeier: I tested it on 3.5 and IEnumerable doesn't work. Am I missing something? (I do see an override accepting IEnumerable for 4.0)

David Brainer Over a year ago

@ClaudioRedi 4.0 does have the override and I believe it was new at that time.

ahsteele Over a year ago

@DavidBrainer-Banker thanks for the insight. Amazing how you fall into a particular way of doing things and miss new stuff when it comes out.

|

ahsteele · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-22 03:10:28Z

3

There are a few options the most brute force way is with a series of if statements.

// this runs the risk of a hanging chad
// i.e. ", value, value"
ClientString = String.Empty;

if (CheckBox1.Checked)
   ClientString = CheckBox1.Text;
if (CheckBox2.Checked)
   ClientString += ", " + CheckBox2.Text;
if (CheckBox3.Checked)
   ClientString += ", " + CheckBox3.Text;
if (CheckBox4.Checked)
   ClientString += ", " + CheckBox4.Text;

That said you might be better off using a CheckBoxList and a lambda expression.

ClientString = checkboxBoxList.Items.Cast<ListItem>()
               .Where(i => i.Selected)
               .Join(", ", i => i.Text);

For .NET 2.0 something like this would probably be best:

List<string> cbTexts = new List<string>();

if (CheckBox1.Checked)
   cbText.Add(CheckBox1.Text);
if (CheckBox2.Checked)
   cbText.Add(CheckBox2.Text);
if (CheckBox3.Checked)
   cbText.Add(CheckBox3.Text);
if (CheckBox4.Checked)
   cbText.Add(CheckBox4.Text);

string ClientString = String.Empty;

foreach (string cbText in cbTexts)
{
  ClientString += cbText ", ";
}

ClientString.Remove(ClientString.Length - 2); // remove trailing comma

edited Dec 22, 2011 at 3:10

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 20:16

ahsteele

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4 Comments

Valien Over a year ago

Ended up using this option since it's a pretty simple form and I'm not actually using a checkboxlist for this. It works for the quick form I had to get going today. Thanks!

David Brainer Over a year ago

@Valien The one issue with the first method here (the one your chose) is that you could end up , value, value, value when CheckBox1 is not checked. Something to consider.

Valien Over a year ago

@DavidBrainer-Banker you're right. the , does show in the table but not too concerned since it's a quick/dirty table to gather data over a short period of time. I'll probably manually strip it out when I dump the contents to a spreadsheet.

ahsteele Over a year ago

@Valien I edited my answer yesterday to include something a bit cleaner.

Haris Hasan · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 20:14:43Z

1

You can do it like this

//clear the string 
String ClientString = String.Empty;
     if (CheckBox1.Checked )
        ClientString = CheckBox1.Text
     if (CheckBox2.Checked )
        ClientString += ", " + CheckBox2.Text;
     if (CheckBox3.Checked )
        ClientString += ", " + CheckBox3.Text;
     if (CheckBox4.Checked )
        ClientString += ", " + CheckBox4.Text;

What your code below doing is if any checkbox is checked then combine text value of all the checkboxes

if (CheckBox1.Checked || CheckBox2.Checked || CheckBox3.Checked || CheckBox4.Checked)
    {
      ClientString = CheckBox1.Text + ", " + CheckBox2.Text + ", " + CheckBox3.Text + ", " + CheckBox4.Text; 
    }

answered Dec 21, 2011 at 20:14

Haris Hasan

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Comments

David Brainer · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 20:21:59Z

Okay, I read your question as asking for the value of all of the checkboxes if they were all selected and based on this I said: You wrote this with OR when I think you meant to use AND

if (CheckBox1.Checked && CheckBox2.Checked && CheckBox3.Checked && CheckBox4.Checked)
{
    ClientString = String.Format("{0}, {1}, {2}, {3}", CheckBox1.Text, CheckBox2.Text, CheckBox3.Text, CheckBox4.Text); 
}

However, now I realize that what you were really looking for was only the value of those checkboxes which were selected and you wanted it whether or not they were all selected. You might do this by concatenating a list:

List<String> values = new List<String>();
if (CheckBox1.Checked) result.Add(CheckBox1.Text);
if (CheckBox2.Checked) result.Add(CheckBox2.Text);
if (CheckBox3.Checked) result.Add(CheckBox3.Text);
if (CheckBox4.Checked) result.Add(CheckBox4.Text);
String result = String.Join(", ", values);

Jacob · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-21 20:40:27Z

1

To comma separate the list:

TextList textlist = new List<string>();
if (CheckBox1.Checked) textlist.Add(CheckBox1.Text);
if (CheckBox2.Checked) textlist.Add(CheckBox2.Text);
if (CheckBox3.Checked) textlist.Add(CheckBox3.Text);
if (CheckBox4.Checked) textlist.Add(CheckBox4.Text);
ClientString clientString = string.Join(",", textlist);

edited Dec 21, 2011 at 20:40

Jacob

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answered Dec 21, 2011 at 20:18

Brandon

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