[RESOLVED] Getting bound ComboBox selected item text

[wolf99]

Hi Folks

I have a Combobox populated with MAC address strings from a SQL server DB (using Entity Framwork)

Public Class Form1
    Dim myContext As New MySqlDataEntities
    Dim burnRackBay As New BurnRackBay
 
    Private Sub Form1_Load(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        ComboBox1.DataSource = myContext.BurnRackBays
        ComboBox1.DisplayMember = "Mac"
        ComboBox1.SelectedIndex = -1
    End Sub

However when getting the text of the selected item to use in a new L2E query the only way that seems to work is to use ComboBox.Text

Private Sub ComboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(sender As Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles ComboBox1.SelectedIndexChanged
        If ComboBox1.SelectedIndex >= 0 Then
            Label4.Text = ComboBox1.Text
        End If
    End Sub

But when I do this, when the form loads the label text is immediately set to the first item in the list instead of just being left blank, as the ComboBox is (as I set its index to -1 in Form1.Load)

Is there a better way of getting the selected string, that is the *actual* string *currently* selected

EDIT: Just noted that this does not occur if I remove the If from the selectedIndexChanged event... does this mean that the event is firing on form load but before the form.load event sub runs?

[dunfiddlin]

Just noted that this does not occur if I remove the If from the selectedIndexChanged event... does this mean that the event is firing on form load but before the form.load event sub runs?

Er, not quite. If it ran before the form load it wouldn't have anything to select, would it. The default on binding is to select item 0. The event fires and the label gets the text. You then change the selected index to -1 and the event fires again but as it's -1 no change is effected in the label. I'm not really sure why you need the label to say what the combobox already says, to be honest, but the simplest solution is an Else Label4.Text = ""

[wolf99]

Hmm, OK. I think I need to make this test projet more accurately represent my use case before I go any further...

Thanks dunfiddlin