Question

May I know is there a shorter way to add items to the comboBox? Currently I am only adding 20 items which already seems very long, what if I have a 100 items to add into the comboBox?

My code:

private void loadSharePricesComboBox()
{
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("BARC");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("DEB");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("DOM");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("EZJ");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("GFS");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("IHG");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("JD.");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("LAD");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("LLOY");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("MRW");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("NXT");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("OCDO");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("RBS");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("SMWH");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("SPD");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("STAN");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("SYR");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("TALK");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("TSCO");
    comboComSymbol.Items.Add("WMH");

    comboComSymbol.SelectedIndex = -1;
}

Your help is much appreciated! Thank you. 🙂

Addition code (for the question i asked Simon Whitehead):

private void btnDownloadXML_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
    {
        client.DownloadFile("http://www.lse.co.uk/chat/" + comboDownloadXML.SelectedItem,
                            @"..\..\sharePriceXML\" + comboDownloadXML.SelectedItem + ".xml");
    }
    MessageBox.Show("Download Completed! File has been placed in the folder sharePriceXML!");
}

Answer 1

To save on code size.. why not list them in a file?

void loadSharePricesComboBox(string fileName) {
    using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fileName)) {
        while (!sr.EndOfStream) {
            comboComSymbol.Items.Add(sr.ReadLine());
        }
    }
}

EDIT: In response to your comment.. I would just load the files, without extensions.. that would be much easier:

void loadSharePricesComboBox(string path) {
    foreach (string file in Directory.GetFiles(path, "*.xml")) {
        comboComSymbol.Items.Add(Path.GetFileNameWithoutExtension(file));
    }
}

Pass in the path you want to load the XML file names from, perhaps like this:

loadSharePricesComboBox(@"..\..\sharePriceXML\");

This will load all the XML file names, without their extensions, giving you the list you require.