What is the simplest way to get the selected text in a combo box containing only text entries?

Question

My WPF ComboBox contains only text entries. The user will select one. What is the simplest way to get the text of the selected ComboBoxItem? Please answer in both C# and Visual Basic. Here is my ComboBox:

<ComboBox Name="cboPickOne">
    <ComboBoxItem>This</ComboBoxItem>
    <ComboBoxItem>should be</ComboBoxItem>
    <ComboBoxItem>easier!</ComboBoxItem>
</ComboBox>

By the way, I know the answer but it wasn't easy to find. I thought I'd post the question to help others. REVISION: I've learned a better answer. By adding SelectedValuePath="Content" as a ComboBox attribute I no longer need the ugly casting code. See Andy's answer below.

Answer 1

<ComboBox 
  Name="cboPickOne"
  SelectedValuePath="Content"
  >
  <ComboBoxItem>This</ComboBoxItem>
  <ComboBoxItem>should be</ComboBoxItem>
  <ComboBoxItem>easier!</ComboBoxItem>
</ComboBox>

In code:

   stringValue = cboPickOne.SelectedValue.ToString()

Answer 2

Just to clarify Heinzi and Jim Brissom's answers here is the code in Visual Basic:

Dim text As String = DirectCast(cboPickOne.SelectedItem, ComboBoxItem).Content.ToString()

and C#:

string text = ((ComboBoxItem)cboPickOne.SelectedItem).Content.ToString();

Thanks!

Answer 3

If you already know the content of your ComboBoxItem are only going to be strings, just access the content as string:

string text = ((ComboBoxItem)cboPickOne.SelectedItem).Content.ToString();

Answer 4

I just did this.

string SelectedItem = MyComboBox.Text;

Answer 5

If you add items in ComboBox as

youComboBox.Items.Add("Data"); 

Then use this:

youComboBox.SelectedItem; 

But if you add items by data binding, use this:

DataRowView vrow = (DataRowView)youComboBox.SelectedItem;
DataRow row = vrow.Row;
MessageBox.Show(row[1].ToString());

Answer 6

Using cboPickOne.Text should give you the string.

Answer 7

var s = (string)((ComboBoxItem)cboPickOne.SelectedItem).Content;

Dim s = DirectCast(DirectCast(cboPickOne.SelectedItem, ComboBoxItem).Content, String)

Since we know that the content is a string, I prefer a cast over a ToString() method call.

Answer 8

Use the DataRowView.Row.Item[Index] or ItemArray[Index] property to get the SelectedItem, where Index is the index of the column in the DataTable used as itemSource for the combobox. In your case it will be 0. Instead of index you can also pass the Column name also:

VB:

Dim sItem As String=DirectCast(cboPickOne.SelectedItem, DataRowView).Row.Item(1).ToString()

C#

String sItem=((DataRowView)cboPickOne.SelectedItem).Row.Item[1].ToString();

To get the SelectedValue you can use:

VB:

Dim sValue As String=cboPickOne.SelectedValue.ToString()

C#

String sValue=cboPickOne.SelectedValue.ToString();