Question

This is probably a long shot, but I’m trying to minimize the repition in the program I’m working on, and have run into a snag. As can be seen in the ClearTextBoxes() method below, I have a very repetitive bit of code that I would prefer to place inside a foreach loop for succinctness. (Originally the foreach (object box in customBoxes) loop was not there). I tried to do this with the following List, but to no avail. I’m not sure if this is just not possible to do, or if I’m simply doing it wrong. I would appreciate any help you could give, and if this can’t be done, then how can I shrink this code block?

Thanks!

List<object> customBoxes = new List<object>();

customBoxes.AddRange(new[] { "TextBox", "DateBox", "DigitBox", "PhoneBox", "WaterTextBox" });



public void ClearTextBoxes()
    {
        ChildControls ccChildren = new ChildControls();

        foreach (object o in ccChildren.GetChildren(rvraDockPanel, 2))
        {
            foreach (object box in customBoxes)
            {
                if (o.GetType() == typeof(TextBox))
                {
                    TextBox txt = (TextBox)o;
                    txt.Text = "";
                }

                if (o.GetType() == typeof(DigitBox))
                {
                    DigitBox digit = (DigitBox)o;
                    digit.Text = "";
                }

                if (o.GetType() == typeof(PhoneBox))
                {
                    PhoneBox phone = (PhoneBox)o;
                    phone.Text = "";
                }

                if (o.GetType() == typeof(DateBox))
                {
                    DateBox date = (DateBox)o;
                    date.Text = "";
                }

                if (o.GetType() == typeof(WatermarkTextBox))
                {
                    WatermarkTextBox water = (WatermarkTextBox)o;
                    water.Text = "";
                }
            }
        }
    }

Answer 1

I would create an interface with a ClearText() method.

interface IClearable
{
  public void ClearText();
}

Then you can inherit from each control and apply that interface:

class ClearableDigitBox : DigitBox, IClearable
{
  public void ClearText() {
    Text = String.Empty;
  }
}
// etc...

So it’s just:

var list = new List<IClearable>;
// ...
foreach (IClearable control in list) control.ClearText();