Question

is there a simple way of creating a button collection from the existing buttons on my form? (In c#).

I have a series of buttons already on my form and I want to use an index to access them…e.g.:

myButtonArray[0].ForeColor ...// Do something with it

Can this be done?

Edit: Can I set the array to have a generic OnClick event? And then determine which button in the array was clicked and, say, change its color?

Answer 1

You can do it the same way as for any other array. For example:

Button[] array = { firstButton, secondButton };

or if you need to declare in one place and assign later:

Button[] array;
...
array = new Button[] { firstButton, secondButton };

In C# 3+ you can use implicit typing for array initializers:

Button[] array;
...
array = new[] { firstButton, secondButton };

You might also want to consider using a List<Button> instead:

List<Button> buttons = new List<Button> { firstButton, secondButton };