Get return value from pressed button

Question

I have a form that pops up at a specific event. It draws up buttons from an array and sets the Tag value to a specific value. So if you are to press or click this button the function should return the Tag value.

How can I do this? And how do I know which button was clicked? At this moment the code returns DialogResult, but I want to return the Tag value from the function. How shall I modify my code so that it can do this?

public static DialogResult SelectBox(string title, string[] btnArray, string[] btnValueArray)
{
    Form form = new Form();

    Button[] buttonArray;
    buttonArray = new Button[5];

    form.Text = title;

    for (int i = 0; i < btnArray.Length; i++)
    {
        buttonArray[i] = new Button();
        buttonArray[i].Text = btnArray[i];
        buttonArray[i].Tag = new int();
        buttonArray[i].Tag = btnValueArray[i];

        buttonArray[i].TabStop = false;
        buttonArray[i].Location = new System.Drawing.Point(0, i * 40);
        buttonArray[i].Size = new System.Drawing.Size(240, 40);
    }

    form.ClientSize = new Size(240, 268);
    form.Controls.AddRange(new Control[] { buttonArray[0], buttonArray[1], buttonArray[2] });
    form.FormBorderStyle = FormBorderStyle.FixedDialog;
    form.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.CenterScreen;
    form.MinimizeBox = false;
    form.MaximizeBox = false;

    DialogResult dialogResult = form.ShowDialog();
    return dialogResult;
}

Solution 1

Add a private variable in the form:

private object SelectedTag;

Add a button click handler:

private void Button_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    SelectedTag = ((Button)sender).Tag;
}

Assign the handler to each button you create:

..
buttonArray[i].OnClick += form.Button_Click;
..

Then in your static function, simply return form.SelectedTag instead of the dialogresult.

Solution 2

You could call the same click event for all buttons. then in your handler:

private void ButtonClick(object sender, EventArgs args)
{
  Button oButton = (Button) sender;

  object data = oButton.Tag;
}

Comments

[Oscar Mederos]

What if there are more than 8 buttons? (DialogResult enum has 8 possible values)

[Cody Gray]

@Oscar: Yeah, if that's the case, you'll need to do a bit more work. Rarely (if ever) should a form contain more than 8 buttons.

[Oscar Mederos]

Just open Microsoft Outlook, Go to Tools > Options and you will see (only in the first tab) 13 ;)