Data population in Combobox for VB.NET application

[Narasimhan]

Hi
I have a combobox which is used to populate City Names and their corresponding
City Codes.

City names will be displayed in combobox.

If i click a particular city from combobox, i need to get corresponding city
code for a selected city name.


For example we have the following list of city names and city codes.

CityName CityCode
-------- --------
NewYork "NY"
Washington "WT"
Pitspurg "PP"


If i click "Washington" from a combobox, i should be able to get corresponding
city code "WT" from a combobox.

How to achieve this in VB.NET.

Please give me a solution.

Thanks
Narasimhan S

[Len Weaver]

Hello Narasimhan,

> I have a combobox which is used to populate City Names and their
corresponding
> City Codes.
[snip]
> If i click "Washington" from a combobox, i should be able to get
corresponding
> city code "WT" from a combobox.
> How to achieve this in VB.NET.

Write a class to contain both the name and code for a given city.
Ex:

<Untested Code>
Public Class CityInfo

Private mCode As String
Private mName As String

Public Sub New(ByVal name As String, ByVal code As String)

mName = name
mCode = code
End Sub

Public Property Name() As String
Get
Return mName
End Get
Set
mName = Value
End Set
End Property

Public Property Code() As String
Get
Return mCode
End Get
Set
mCode = Value
End Set
End Property

Public Overrides Function ToString() As String

Return mName
End Function
End Class
</Untested Code>

Populate your ComboBox like this:

cboCity.Items.Add( New CityInfo("New York", "NY" ) )
cboCity.Items.Add( New CityInfo("Washington", "WT" ) )


Retrieve the selected CityInfo object like this:

Dim SelectedCity As CityInfo

SelectedCity = CType(cboCity.SelectedItem, CityInfo)

Debug.WriteLine( SelectedCity.Name )
Debug.WriteLine( SelectedCity.Code )

Hope this helps,
Len

[rudyehinojosa]

Ok, this migth be a dumb question. I've already created a class that does that very thing, but here is my dilemma. When I select the multi valued entry in my combobox, I then parse the value I want into combobox.text = <code> BUT after I do that, it still shows the full values. What am I doing wrong?

[joewmaki]

Ok, this migth be a dumb question. I've already created a class that does that very thing, but here is my dilemma. When I select the multi valued entry in my combobox, I then parse the value I want into combobox.text = <code> BUT after I do that, it still shows the full values. What am I doing wrong?

If I understand your question, Len already answered it:

Dim SelectedCity As CityInfo

SelectedCity = CType(cboCity.SelectedItem, CityInfo)

Debug.WriteLine( SelectedCity.Name )
Debug.WriteLine( SelectedCity.Code )

You need to take the SelectedItem value of the combobox and convert it back into an instance of your class object. Then you can retrieve either property of the class.

[rudyehinojosa]

Thank you for your quick response. I'm sorry, I wasn't clear. I've got everything to work in the code blocks. What I can't get to work is applying the non description value back to the text of the combobox property. for example. if the pair string is "01 - mydescription" -- After the user selects this row, I want the combobox to close and only show me "01". I started with combobox.text = SelectedCity.Code (for the spirit of the example). BUT, it returns back the full description.

I just left the world of vb6, so please tell me I don't have to do some kloodgy code to hide a textbox to overlay the combobox's coordinates to show me a different value or some noise like that. I will kill myself after becoming a clocktower sniper for the day.

Rudy

[rudyehinojosa]

Ok. Finally got this figured out. Here's a video sample of what I wanted to happen. I had a databound combobox that simply displayed a territory number as a varchar(2). I had the dropdown populate only on the dropdown event. and using the dropdownclosed property, i cleared the combobox and added the selected item code as the .text property and whalla. If anyone is interested, I will supply the code to make this happen.

combobox_resolved.avi

[rrjii2000]

Public Sub New(ByVal name As String, ByVal code As String)

     mName = name
     mCode = code

End Sub



Public Overrides Function ToString() As String

     Return mName

End Function

Can someone explain why you would need to set your properies = to you fileds in your class constructor? Also why use a tostring fuction?

I also thought I once read about a way to store an associated value with the main item in a list/combo box without using a class, although I may be mistaken.