Question

Let’s say I have this items:

        comboBox.Items.Add("Access"); // make it equal to 31
        comboBox.Items.Add("Create"); // make it equal to 34
        comboBox.Items.Add("Delete"); // make it equal to 36
        comboBox.Items.Add("Modify"); // make it equal to 38

Now, I call

comboBox.SelectedIndex = 34; // want to "Create" item has been chosen

What is the easiest way to do that ?

Answer 1

It depends a lot on how your data is going to be managed.

If your items are not going to be modified over the course of your program you can simply use a dictionary as a mapping table.

comboBox.Items.Add("Access"); // make it equal to 31
comboBox.Items.Add("Create"); // make it equal to 34
comboBox.Items.Add("Delete"); // make it equal to 36
comboBox.Items.Add("Modify"); // make it equal to 38

Dictionary<int, int> mapTable = new Dictionary<int, int>();
mapTable.Add(31, 0);
mapTable.Add(34, 1);
mapTable.Add(36, 2);
mapTable.Add(38, 3);

Then simply use the following:

comboBox.SelectedIndex = mapTable[34];

You can even put this logic in a class that inherits from ComboBox for better abstraction.