Question

I want to look up a label at runtime, is this the correct way to do it?

Control[] control;
Label label;

control = this.Controls.Find(labelToChange, false);
label = (Label)control[0];

I couldn’t find a method that returns a single control, so I had to store it a collection and then retrieve the first one. It will always find a single item.

Answer 1

This is the correct method to use.

The MSDN documentation doesn’t indicate why it returns a collection, but if you have the a control that encapsulates several sub controls and instantiate that several times you will end up with a collection of labels.

So:

1. If you can guarantee that there will only ever be one control visible at any one time your code is OK.
2. If there could be more than one, then you need to loop over all the controls that are returned and either perform the same action on each or add some more code to work out which one you really want.