Setting selected item in a ListBox without looping

Question

I have a multi-select listbox which I am binding to a DataTable. DataTable contains 2 columns description and value.

Here's the listbox populating code:

DataTable copytable = null;
                copytable = GlobalTable.Copy(); // GlobalTable is a DataTable
                copytable.Rows[0][0] = "--ALL--";
                copytable.Rows[0][1] = "--ALL--";

                breakTypeList.DataSource = copytable;
                this.breakTypeList.DisplayMember = copytable.Columns[0].ColumnName; // description
                this.breakTypeList.ValueMember = copytable.Columns[1].ColumnName; // value
                this.breakTypeList.SelectedIndex = -1;

I am setting description as the DisplayMember and value as the ValueMember of the ListBox. Now depending on what the value is passed I need to set the selected item in the ListBox.

Here's my code:

ListBox lb = c as ListBox;
lb.SelectedValue = valuePassedByUser;

which is not working. Hence I have to resort to the code below (where I loop through all the items in the list box)

for (int i = 0; i < lb.Items.Count; i++)
            {
                DataRowView dr = lb.Items[i] as DataRowView;
                if (dr["value"].ToString() == valuePassedByUser)
                {
                    lb.SelectedIndices.Add(i);
                    break;
                }
            }

I would like to know what is missing/ erroneous in my code. Why is lb.SelectedValue = valuePassedByUser; selecting incorrect items?

Answer 1

Ok ... here comes hard-to-digest answer which I realized only yesterday. It's my mistake though that I didn't mention one important thing in my question because I felt it is irrelevant to problem at hand:

The data in the data table was not sorted. Hence I had set the listbox's Sorted property to true. Later I realized When the listbox's or even combo box's sorted property is set to true then the value member does not get set properly. So if I write:

lb.SelectedValue = valuePassedByUser;

it sets some other item as selected rather than settting the one whose Value is valuePassedByUser. In short it messes with the indexes.

For e.g. if my initial data is:

Index   ValueMember DisplayMember
1          A            Apple
2          M            Mango
3          O            Orange
4          B            Banana

And I set sorted = true. Then the listbox items are:

Index   ValueMember DisplayMember
1          A            Apple
2          B            Banana
3          M            Mango
4          O            Orange

Now if I want to set Banana as selected, I run the stmt:

lb.SelectedValue = "B";

But instead of setting Banana as selected, it sets Orange as selected. Why? Because had the list not been sorted, index of Banana would be 4. So even though after sorting index of Banana is 2, it sets index 4 as selected, thus making Orange selected instead of Banana.

Hence for sorted listbox, I am using the following code to set selected items:

private void SetSelectedBreakType(ListBox lb, string value)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < lb.Items.Count; i++)
    {
        DataRowView dr = lb.Items[i] as DataRowView;
        if (dr["value"].ToString() == value)
        {
            lb.SelectedIndices.Add(i);
            break;
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

I think the only way you'll be able to select multiple items is by using a foreach loop. The SelectedValue property only seems to return 1 item. If you want to select more then 1 item you'll have to use :

var tempListBox = c As ListBox;
if (tempListBox != null)
     (tempListBox.SelectedItems.Add(tempListBox.Items[tempListBox.FindStringExact(fieldValue)]);

Also the FindStringExact doesn't search through the Value fields it only looks through the displayed text. Also to cut down on code might want to cast a new variable as a listbox so you don't keep casting C as a listbox.