What's with this split?

[hog]

Right I have a combo box which has entries like thie;

[3] DOE JOHN

I want to use spilt to extract the 3. My code below when using the combobox selecteditem method gives me a blank message box, but if I hard code the text I get the 3?

Am I missing something here?

Dim strString As String = Me.cboFullName.SelectedItem

Dim strString As String = "[3] DOE JOHN"

Dim strDelimiterList As String = "[] "
Dim strDelimiter As Char() = strDelimiterList.ToCharArray()
Dim strSplit As String() = Nothing

strSplit = strString.Split(strDelimiter, 3)
        
MessageBox.Show(strSplit(1))

 

[Robby]

Your delimiter should be the right bracket ] , because you dont have any [] without numbers in between, do you? Then remove the left bracket once in the array.

Why not use DataValueField and DataTextField so that the Selected Item is the ID number?

 

[hog]

OK thnx Ill look at this

Why not use DataValueField and DataTextField so that the Selected Item is the ID number?

The string in the combobox is a concatenation of database fields id, lastname and first name.

Im doing it this way to extract the id from the string.

I build the combobox using the add items method but couldnt figure out how to include the id field after the concatenation and be able to return this as the users choice if you know what I mean??

 

[_SBradley_]

Regular Expressions

I have to say, I would use a Regular Expression for this purpose. Ive written a little example in C#, because I dont know VB; but converting back to VB should be easy enough for you.

[CS]
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Windows.Forms;

class IDExtractor
{
static void Main()
{
string str = "[3] DOE JOHN";
Regex r = new Regex(@"\[(?<id>([0-9]+))\]");
Match m = r.Match(str);

if (m.Success)
MessageBox.Show(m.Groups["id"].Value, "ID");
}
}
[/CS]

 

[hog]

This looks impressive, but I dont understand it

Can anyone put it into VB??

 

[_SBradley_]

Regular Expressions in VB

My first ever attempt at VB. Hope its OK!

[VB]
Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions
Imports System.Windows.Forms

Public Module IDExtractor
Sub Main
Dim str As String
str = "[3] DOE JOHN"

Dim r As Regex
r = New Regex("\[(?<id>([0-9]+))\]")

Dim m As Match
m = r.Match(str)

If m.Success
MessageBox.Show(m.Groups("id").Value, "ID")
End If
End Sub
End Module
[/VB]

 

[Robby]

Hog, youre make things too complicated for yourself, if all you want is to get the ID field from the selelcted combo then do something like this during binding...

myCombo.DataValueField = "SomeIDColumn"
myCombo.DataTextField = "SomeFullNameColumn"

Then to retrieve the ID when a user selects an item...

someVar = myCombo.SeletectedItem.Value

 

[hog]

Right I know this is overly complicated but I couldnt figure out how to get the ID value.

If I used a datasource, displaymember,value member approach this would be easy. But I am building the combobox values on the fly. I dont know how to add multiple columns to a combobox and then how to retrieve a particular column.

Although Im off to have a look now

 

[hog]

Robby, my combo boxes do not hve properties datavaluefield or datatext field?

Thnx _SBradley_ Ill have to read up on regx as the Regex("\[(?<id>([0-9]+))\]" entry seems odd

 

[wyrd]

Combobox is nothing but an ArrayList of objects. Toss in custom objects that define your object (Person for example) and override the ToString() method (Combobox uses the ToString() for displaying data). Then when you retrieve items from your Combobox, you can just cast it to your custom Person object.

class Person
{
   private string _name;
   private int _id;

   // properties etc here.

   // Combobox will use this method to display your data.
   override public string ToString() 
   {
      return "[" + _id + "] " + _name;
   }
}

 

[Robby]

IF you dont DataValueField or DataTextField then you must be using a Win Form, then you can achieve the same thing with the following...

myCombo.ValueMember = "SomeIDColumn"
myCombo.DisplayMember = "SomeFullNameColumn"

Then to retrieve the ID when a user selects an item...

someVar = myCombo.SelectedValue

 

[hog]

OK Im obviously missing something really basic here

This is how I populate my combobox.

Dim strSQL As String = "SELECT [ + str(CandidateID) + ] +   + LastName +   + FirstName AS " & _
"FullName, LastName +   + FirstName AS SortName " & _
"FROM tblCandidates ORDER BY LastName +   + FirstName"

            While odrReader.Read()
                Me.cboFullName.Items.Add(odrReader.GetString(0))
            End While

Ive omitted all the other code for clarity.

1. How do I add multiple columns?

2. I only have this problem cos I read that a datareader was better used in this read only situation as opposed to a dataadapter? I always used dataadapters before and so never had this problem??

3. Wryd, are you saying I should inherit a combobox control and modify it some how?

cheers

 

[Robby]

Thats why in my second post I mentioned Binding, creat a Dataset with the following SQL Select....

Dim strSQL As String =  "SELECT SomeIdColumn, [ + str(CandidateID) + ] +   + LastName +   + FirstName AS " & _
"FullName, LastName +   + FirstName AS SortName " & _
"FROM tblCandidates ORDER BY LastName, FirstName"

With cboFullName
    .Datasource = myDataSet.Tables(0).DefaultView This uses the dataview of the first table of your dataset
    .ValueMember = "SomeIdColumn"
    .DisplayMember = "FullName"
End With

 

[hog]

DOH!!!!!

Can u all hear that penny drop

Thnx Robby