How to Create a Control Array in C#

Download source code - 20.4 KB

Screenshot - Image1.jpg

Introduction

I wrote an article earlier to create an array of PictureBox controls in your form. You can find it here: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/PictureBox_Array.aspx. This article is about creating an array of Button controls, Label controls, and TextBox controls in your form.

Background

My article has a Form (frmCotrol) with the following controls:

Panel control (pnlButtons) to hold an array of Buttons
Panel control (pnlLabels) to hold an array of Labels
Panel control (pnlTextBox) to hold an array of TextBoxes
Button control (btnAddButton) to add an array of Buttons
Button control (btnRemoveButton) to remove a Button
Button control (btnAddLabel) to add an array of Labels
Button control (btnRemoveLabel) to remove a Label
Button control (btnAddText) to add an array of TextBoxes
Button control (btnRemoveText) to remove a TextBox
Button control (btnExit) to exit the application

Using the code

I wrote a function to create an Array of Buttons, Labels, and TextBoxes at once:

//
// 'anyControl' is type of control, 'cNumber' is number of control 
//
private void AddControls( string anyControl, int cNumber) 
{ 
    switch (anyControl) 
    { 
        case "btn": // anyControl = btn to Add Button 
        { 
            // assign number of controls 
            btnArray = new System.Windows.Forms.Button[cNumber + 1]; 
            for (int i = 0; i < cNumber + 1; i++) 
            { 
                // Initialize one variable 
                btnArray[i] = new System.Windows.Forms.Button(); 
            } 
            break; 
        } 
        case "lbl": // anyControl = lbl to Add Label 
        { 
            // assign number of controls 
            lblArray = new System.Windows.Forms.Label[cNumber + 1]; 
            for (int i = 0; i < cNumber + 1; i++) 
            { 
                // Initialize one variable 
                lblArray[i] = new System.Windows.Forms.Label(); 
            } 
            break; 
        } 
        case "txt": // anyControl = txt to Add TextBox 
        { 
            // assign number of controls 
            txtArray = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox[cNumber + 1]; 
            for (int i = 0; i < cNumber + 1; i++) 
            { 
                // Initialize one variable 
                txtArray[i] = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox(); 
            } 
            break; 
        } 
    } 
}

You can go to the functions in the source file to see how I create the Events and the result of these events which occurs when the control is clicked:

The function ClickButton() will get the text of a Button.

I put the event in the function ShowButton():

//
// the Event of click Button
//
btnArray[n].Click += new System.EventHandler(ClickButton);

The function ClickLabel() will copy the text from TextBox to a Label which has the same index.

I put the Event in the function ShowLabel():

//
// the Event of click Label
//
btnLabel[n].Click += new System.EventHandler(ClickLabel);

The function ClickTextBox() will edit it.

I put the Event in the function ShowTextBox():

//
// the Event of click TextBox
//
btn TextBox [n].Click += new System.EventHandler(ClickTextBox);

About the code

Control array creation is not difficult, but I hope the new version of Visual Studio .NET will support control arrays as in VB6.

Finally

The file ControlArray.zip contains the source files of this article. I hope this article helps you to create arrays of any control. If you have any ideas, I would like to know about them, and all feedback is appreciated.

Sorry if you find errors in my English!

Thanks to CodeProject and all of you.