Casting a string to a user control

[kto]

I have user controls named as userCtrlxx where xx is a two-digit number. I'm adding these controls dynamically based on certain strings that are also two-digit numbers parsed from strings. I've tried using CType and DirectCast but no lucks so far.
Has anyone done things like that? Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.

Sample codes:
...
Dim userCtrl As UserControl

'Adding based upon a certain 2-digit string
userCtrl = DirectCast("userCtrl" & 2DigitString, UserControl)
Me.PanelBox.Controls.Add(userCtrl)

'Adding using hard-coded name of user control
userCtrl = New userCtrl20
Me.PanelBox.Controls.Add(userCtrl)

I'm using VB Express 2005 on WinXP.

[Plater]

Just set the ID property of your control to that string, then you will be able to search and find them.

userCtrl.ID = "userCtrl" & 2DigitString
Me.PanelBox.Controls.Add(userCtrl)

[kto]

Thanks Plater for the response. However, I did not find an ID property for the User Control. Did you mean its tag?

Thanks.

[Plater]

If this is a windows application I think you would use "Name" oopsy.
Just change where I put "ID" to "Name"

[kto]

Using the Name property would make sense. However, I will still need to instantiate it as a New type of user control as in my samples for the hard-coded method. Do you have any pointers how to accomplish that? Thanks

i.e.
This did not work
Dim tCtrl as UserControl
tCtrl.Name = "userCtrl" & 2DigitString
userCtrl = New tCtrl
Me.PanelBox.Controls.Add(userCtrl)

How about a way to get all user controls so that I can loop thru and find a matched one? Any ideas?

[Plater]

Ah.

Dim tCtrl as UserControl 
tCtrl = New UserControl() 
tCtrl.Name = "userCtrl" & 2DigitString
Me.PanelBox.Controls.Add(tCtrl)
 

Unless you are trying to get the class name by string (which I am starting to think that you are) and not the object name.
There is something like "reflection" that you can use, although I am entirely clueless on that subject.

[kto]

Already tried that after my response earlier but did not work. May have to learn about the reflection that you're talking about. Thanks