ComboBox: Adding Text and Value to an Item (no Binding Source)

c# winforms combobox
Bohn picture Bohn · Jun 17, 2010 · Viewed 858.7k times · Source

In C# WinApp, how can I add both Text and Value to the items of my ComboBox? I did a search and usually the answers are using "Binding to a source".. but in my case I do not have a binding source ready in my program... How can I do something like this:

combo1.Item[1] = "DisplayText";
combo1.Item[1].Value = "useful Value"

Answer

Adam Markowitz picture Adam Markowitz · Jun 17, 2010

You must create your own class type and override the ToString() method to return the text you want. Here is a simple example of a class you can use:

public class ComboboxItem
{
    public string Text { get; set; }
    public object Value { get; set; }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return Text;
    }
}

The following is a simple example of its usage:

private void Test()
{
    ComboboxItem item = new ComboboxItem();
    item.Text = "Item text1";
    item.Value = 12;

    comboBox1.Items.Add(item);

    comboBox1.SelectedIndex = 0;

    MessageBox.Show((comboBox1.SelectedItem as ComboboxItem).Value.ToString());
}

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