How to Access a Windows Forms Control by Name in C#?

Access Windows Forms controls by name in C#

In Windows Forms applications, developers may need to programmatically access control objects by name, especially when controls are dynamically generated from external sources such as XML files. This article addresses this requirement by exploring how to retrieve Windows Forms controls by name in C#.

Dynamically generated controls

Consider a situation where you need to generate multiple ToolStripMenuItems from an XML file. During the generation process, each menu item is dynamically assigned a specific name. To interact with these menu items using C# code, you need a way to reference them using their generated names.

Control.ControlCollection.Find method

To access a Windows Forms control by name, you can use the Control.ControlCollection.Find method. This method accepts a string parameter that represents the name of the control to be found in the specified ControlCollection. In this example, ControlCollection is the Controls property of Windows Forms.

Example

The following code example demonstrates how to use the Control.ControlCollection.Find method to access a ToolStripMenuItem by its dynamically generated name:

<code class="language-c#">string menuName = "MyDynamicMenu"; // 来自 XML 文件的示例名称

ToolStripMenuItem menu = (ToolStripMenuItem)this.Controls.Find(menuName, true)[0];

// 在此处对“MyDynamicMenu”ToolStripMenuItem 执行操作</code>

By combining the Control.ControlCollection.Find method with dynamic name resolution, you can efficiently retrieve and interact with Windows Forms controls based on their name properties, even if they are dynamically generated from an external source.

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