Question

I am having difficulties finding a suiteble way as to search a List<> of strings i have for matches to a user specified string, I am not even sure i am going about it in the best way but what i got so far is:

   // This is the input string.
        string input = userDefinedStr.ToLower(); //New variable and made into lower cases.           

        for (int i = 0; i < listBox1.Items.Count; i++)
        {
            if (listBox1.Items[i].ToString().IndexOf(input, stringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0)
            {
                listBox1.SetSelected(i, true);
            }
            else
            {
                MessageBox.Show("Sorry, There was no matches found.", "An oupps happend!");                    
            }

        }

The problem is that there can be more the one string in the List that contains the userdefined string and i guess that the best way is actually to display all the List<string> matches in the listBox1 instead of just marking the first one found.

Or can it be done in another more effective way?!?

I am new to C# and coding in general so i dont feel like i know the best way, i have read so many articles and postings but i cant find the one pointing me in the right direction on this.

Answer 1

You’re showing a good start, but with that if statement inside the for, you’re going to get a messagebox popping up for every item that doesn’t match.

If you wish to use the code you have so far, simply add a bool before the for (initialized to false) and set it to true when you find a match. Once the for is done, test the bool and if it is still false, no match was found and so you should show your messagebox.

I have suspicions that it can be done in fewer keystrokes in Linq, but it may not be quite as easy to read / understand, depending, and maintainable (/easy to read / understand) code is preferred over clever, as you will have to fix it later.