converting string to a control name in C#

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Find a control in C# winforms by name

Imagine that we have 4 textBoxes (and a button):

textBox1:( Here we must enter the name of the textBox where we want to change background)

textBox2:()

textBox3:()

textBox4:()

In our first textbox we enter a name of any other TextBox and when we click on a button - backrground will change accordingly.

Normally I'd do something like this:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string variableName = textBox1.Text();

if (variableName == "textBox1")
{
    textBox1.BackColor = Color.Black;
}
else if (variableName == "textBox2")
{
    textBox2.BackColor = Color.Black;
}
else if (variableName == "textBox3")
{
    textBox3.BackColor = Color.Black;
}
else if (variableName == "textBox4")
{
    textBox4.BackColor = Color.Black;
}
}

Another way - much simpler way do the same operation would be this:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    string variableName = textBox1.Text();
    variableName.BackColor = Color.Black;
}

And that's all! So my question is:

Is it possible to convert strings to "control names" as showed in example?

You use `this.Controls.Find`, see the question I've flagged as a duplicate. — Richard Ev, Aug 21 '12 at 13:15

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 21 '12 at 13:16

11

A very optimist approach would be

this.Controls.Find("variableName", true)[0].BackColor

answered Aug 21 '12 at 13:16

Andre Calil

7,652
34
41

`.Find` is not populating in VS for me :/ – SearchForKnowledge Aug 18 '14 at 14:11
@SearchForKnowledge do you have `using System.Linq;` on you file? – Andre Calil Aug 18 '14 at 15:01
not working...Error:object not set to instance...i have provided a correct control ID too – Syed Mohamed Aug 21 '14 at 14:24
@Syed This error means that the control wasn't find, thus it's returning null. Could you post some of you code? – Andre Calil Aug 21 '14 at 15:35
1

thanks it's working – Sridhar Rajan Mar 22 '19 at 08:09

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 21 '12 at 13:16

3

Try something like this:

var txtBox = this.Controls.Find("textBox4", true);

answered Aug 21 '12 at 13:16

Peter Kiss

9,309
2
23
38

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 21 '12 at 13:17

You could create a Dictionary<string, TextBox> where the name of each TextBox in the Dictionary is the key for that TextBox.

Then it would be as simple as TextBoxDictionary[variableName].BackColor = Color.Black;, although I recommend checking to make sure it is actually in the dictionary before doing that.

converting string to a control name in C#

3 Answers3

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