Should I use a Winforms combobox's SelectedItem, SelectedText, or SelectedValue?

Question

I want to pass a value in a combo box as a param to a SQL statement. The Winforms combobox gives me several options for retrieving the value, namely SelectedItem, SelectedText, and SelectedValue. Which one is best/safest to use in this scenario?

Answer 1

SelectedValue is probably the best one to use
SelectedText will give you the selected text of the editable portion, Selected Item will return you the object and selected index will return you the index. Usually for applications SelectedValue is extracted and used. Check out Combobox from MSDN

SelectedIndex   Gets or sets the index specifying the currently selected item.                (Overrides ListControl.SelectedIndex.)
SelectedItem    Gets or sets currently selected item in the ComboBox.
SelectedText    Gets or sets the text that is selected in the editable portion of a ComboBox.
SelectedValue   Gets or sets the value of the member property specified by the ValueMember property. (Inherited from ListControl.)

Answer 2

if (comboBox1.DropDownStyle == DropDownStyle.DropDown || 
    comboBox1.DropDownStyle == DropDownStyle.Simple)
{
    return comboBox1.Text;
}

Text is probably the best one to use. This gets whatever is the currently selected text from the ComboBox as a string.

if (comboBox1.DropDownStyle == DropDownStyle.DropDownList)
{
    return comboBox1.GetItemText(comboBox1.SelectedItem);
}

For this style, you cannot get the text from the ComboBox. This returns the string from the item at the currently SelectedIndex instead.