Question

I’ve got code and i know I’m 99% of the way there. C# coding in MS VS2008.

Basically I have a form that has 4 radio buttons and a Continue button. the user clicks one of the radio buttons and clicks continue, and this all works fine.

However, I want to use the value entered by the user (i.e. if they click the first button, I want a variable equal to 1, 2nd button equals 2 and so on). I tried doing this in various points but the only place I can get it to run is in the private void btnOkClick line, which means I can use the values outside this void, which is what I really want.

I’ve tried playing around with setting some enums and such (commented out in the code below), but I can’t quite get it. I know I must be close but my novice-ness is truly showing as I keep reading posts and can’t quite grasp it.

In short, I want to be able to have other classes in my VS2008 project be able to reference whatever value the user selected in the initial form.

namespace AmortClient
{
    public partial class frmLoadACTFCST : Form
    {
        public frmLoadACTFCST()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            //set the parent of the form to the container
            //this.MdiParent = parent;
        }

        //public enum ACTFCST
        //{
        //    ACT = 1,
        //    FCST = 2,
        //    PLAN = 3,
        //    FiveYearPlan2012=4
        //}

        //private ACTFCST _actfcst = ACTFCST.ACT;
        //public ACTFCST actfcst
        //{
        //    get { return _actfcst; }
        //    set { _actfcst = value; }
        //}

        private void frmLoadACTFCST_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {            

        }

        private void groupBox1_Enter(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void btnActual_CheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void btnForecast_CheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void btnPlan_CheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }

        private void btn5YrPlan2012_CheckedChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {

        }    

        private void btnContinue_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            string ACTFCSTtext = "";
            int dataTypeKey = 0;

            if (btnActual.Checked)
            {
                ACTFCSTtext = btnActual.Text;
                dataTypeKey = 1;
            }
            else if (btnForecast.Checked)
            {
                ACTFCSTtext = btnForecast.Text;
                dataTypeKey = 2;
            }

            else if (btnPlan.Checked)
            {
                ACTFCSTtext = btnPlan.Text;
                dataTypeKey = 3;
            }

            else if (btn5YrPlan2012.Checked)
            {
                ACTFCSTtext = btn5YrPlan2012.Text;
                dataTypeKey = 4;
            }

            string msg = "";
            msg = ACTFCSTtext + " " + dataTypeKey;

            //btn5YrPlan2012
            MessageBox.Show(msg);
            Close();

        }

    }
}

Answer 1

Your dataTypeKey and ACTFCSTtext variables need to be declared as instance variables for your Form object if you want to access them from any other methods within your form. If you want to use them with some other form, you can pass them either as constructor arguments, or set some properties of said other form.

So you’d declare them just after the class declaration if you want them to be instance variables. They should still be private, meaning they can only be accessed from within your frmLoadACTFCST class.

public partial class frmLoadACTFCST : Form
{
    private string ACTFCSTtext = "";
    private int dataTypeKey = 0;
...

EDIT: if you want to access variables from one object in a different object (or static class), your options are as follows…

1) Declare your variables as public instance variables (same as shown above but public; these are known as Properties when you give them getter and setter methods). Your class that needs access to these variables would need to have a reference to the class that owns the variables.

Example:
FormA has a public property named SomeString.
FormB needs to access SomeString.
FormB needs a reference to FormA, and would access the variable as…

formAReference.SomeString

2) Pass the values of the variables as arguments to some method for the class that needs access.

Example:
FormA has a private instance variable named SomeString.
FormB needs access to SomeString.
If FormA instantiates FormB, it can pass the value of SomeString to FormB’s constructor…

//From within FormA's code
FormB formB = new FormB(SomeString);

//FormB's constructor
public FormB(string someString)
{
    this.someString = someString;
}