Textbox access.

[poko]

Hi. I am having difficulty looping through texboxes. I do not want to use Controls. I have named my textboxes as:

textBoxBuy1, textBoxBuy2, textBoxBuy3, .....

There are many more textboxes in the form (with different names so that I can use the desired ones in a loop) but I do not want to refer to them while looping. I want to loop all the textboxes named textBoxBuy only. This is what I am doing:

for (int i = 1; i < 6; i++)
{
if ((TextBox)Controls["textBoxBuy" + i.ToString()].Text.Length != 0) {}
}

The error that I am getting is:

Error 1 Cannot convert type 'int' to 'System.Windows.Forms.TextBox'

Can someone please help me out with this?
Thanks

[GaryTexmo]

Sometimes it's good to break your lines down instead of trying to cram as much information as possible onto one line ;)

Your problem is brackets. You're applying the cast to Text.Length instead of the control. The line should actually look like...

if (((TextBox)Controls["textBoxBuy" + i.ToString()]).Text.Length != 0) { }

However, as I'm sure you've gathered by now this is a very difficult line to read and make sure you have correct. Maybe try something like the following... it's easier to read, and a little safer since it's quite possible that you don't find the control you're looking for with a text string.

for (int i = 1; i < 6; i++)
{
    TextBox tb = this.Controls["textBoxBuy" + i.ToString()] as TextBox;
    if (tb != null && tb.Text.Length != 0)
    {
    }
}

[poko]

Thanks Gary, it worked. And I'll try to remember your tip :)