[RESOLVED] Iterate through buttons using loop

[ChipsSlave]

Hello all,

I have got nine buttons on my applications which I want my loop to run through and change text of the button to an empty string.

At the begining of a sub I've got buttons declared as buttons. Followed by loop that i ranges from 1 to 9 and every loop code changes button text and makes it enabled again.

I could just hard code these two action for every button but I dont think it is smart coding devision to do. For example:

Button1.text = ""
Button1.Enabled = True
...
...
Button9.text = ""
Button9.Enabled = True

Is there a simple solution for this?

    Private Sub end_game()
        Dim b1 As Button = Button1
        Dim b2 As Button = Button2
        Dim b3 As Button = Button3
        Dim b4 As Button = Button4
        Dim b5 As Button = Button5
        Dim b6 As Button = Button6
        Dim b7 As Button = Button7
        Dim b8 As Button = Button8
        Dim b9 As Button = Button9

        For i As Byte = 1 To 9
            b(i).text = ""
            b(i).enabled = True
        Next i

    End Sub

[si_the_geek]

Rather than creating separate variables for the buttons, you can create an array of them:

    Private Sub end_game()
        Dim b As Button() = {Button1, Button2, Button3, Button4, Button5, Button6, Button7, Button8, Button9}

        For i As Byte = 1 To 9
            b(i).text = ""
            b(i).enabled = True
        Next i

    End Sub

Also note that using Byte for the data type of a loop counter isn't the best choice... while it uses slightly less memory than other data types (a negligible amount, even if you have hundreds of nested loops running), it makes the code run more slowly than with larger data types. Integer is generally best, as that is designed to be the same size as the processor is optimised for.

[jmcilhinney]

As suggested, you can create an array directly. If these Buttons are the only Buttons in their parent container, you can also do this:

For Each btn In parentContainer.Controls.OfType(Of Button)()
    '...
Next

[si_the_geek]

Indeed... and you have reminded me of something I should have pointed out before, which is that a For Each loop in my example would have made the code easier to read:

    Private Sub end_game()
        Dim buttons As Button() = {Button1, Button2, Button3, Button4, Button5, Button6, Button7, Button8, Button9}

        For Each b in buttons
            b.text = ""
            b.enabled = True
        Next

    End Sub