Question

I have a DataGridView with cells from a database file that contains data. Basically, I want to get the text from the selected cells in the DataGridView and display it in a textbox at the click of the button. The code for the button click event is:

Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click     Dim SelectedThings As String = DataGridView1.SelectedCells.ToString     TextBox1.Text = SelectedThings End Sub 

However in TextBox1 I get:

System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewSelectedCellCollection

I’m thinking it isn’t as simple as it seems. I’m a C developer just learning VB.NET.

Answer 1

DataGridView.SelectedCells is a collection of cells, so it’s not as simple as calling ToString() on it. You have to loop through each cell in the collection and get each cell’s value instead.

The following will create a comma-delimited list of all selected cells’ values.

C#

TextBox1.Text = ''; bool FirstValue = true; foreach(DataGridViewCell cell in DataGridView1.SelectedCells) {     if(!FirstValue)     {         TextBox1.Text += ', ';     }     TextBox1.Text += cell.Value.ToString();     FirstValue = false; } 

VB.NET (Translated from the code above)

TextBox1.Text = '' Dim FirstValue As Boolean =  True  Dim cell As DataGridViewCell For Each cell In DataGridView1.SelectedCells     If Not FirstValue Then         TextBox1.Text += ', '     End If     TextBox1.Text += cell.Value.ToString()     FirstValue = False Next