How do you convert a string into an object

[Maria P]

So, I'm creating an array of labels. I have labels set up as:

labal1
label2
label3
etc...

I've declared the array as such:

Dim labelArray(5) As Label

Now, instead of assigning the labels one by one to the array (labelArray(0) = label1, labelArray(1) = label2, etc...), I was hoping to use a loop (there will be more than 5 labels). I have something like this, which obviously doesn't quite work:

For i = 0 To 5
      labelArray(i) = "label" & i
Next

Is there a function that I can use to convert the labelName string to an object, or have vb.net see that as an object instead of a string?

[Frinavale]

Labels are objects.
They have properties....

The have a Text Property that is a string and is used to display text in the Label. They also have a Name Property that you can use as an identifier for the Label so that you can access it by name/id in code.

Since you are dynamically populating the labels, it's unlikely that you'll use the Name property but you are quite likely to use the Text property...since you want to display text in the label.

What I'm trying to say is that you don't want to convert the Label into a String. You want to use the Label's Text Property to set and get the string displayed.

Like this:

For i = 0 To labelArray.Length-1
  labelArray(i) = New Label
  labelArray(i).Text = "label" & i
Next

-Frinny

[Maria P]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not trying to set the text for the labels. That was done in the property settings for the labels themselves when I created my form. The text is set as "Seat 1", "Seat 2", etc...

I have a million labels on this form.

lblLabel1
lblLabel2
lblLabel3
lblLabel4
etc...

I created an array so that I could use loops to manage changes to the labels. But, I don't want to have to use code like...

labelArray(0) = lblLabel1
labelArray(1) = lblLabel2
labelArray(2) = lblLabel3
labelArray(3) = lblLabel4
labelArray(4) = lblLabel5
 

When you have a million labels, this is kind of much. So, I wanted to use a loop and concatenate the counter to the end of say "lblLabel" and do it that way, so that I don't have 10 million lines of code for this.

[Frinavale]

I'm sorry I didn't understand what you were trying to accomplish yesterday. Thanks for re-explaining the problem.

I didn't realize that you had put your labels on the form already...I thought that you were trying to dynamically create them and place them on the form.

Anyways, I'm not very familiar with Win Form projects but you should be able to loop through all of the child controls and use the Type Of or GetType methods to determine what the control is.

For example, if all of your controls were in a Panel, you could loop through the Panel.Controls property, check if the control is a Label, and if it is, add it to your list of labels.

There's probably a way to do this for the whole window/form too but I'm not sure of the properties (it's probably a Controls property too).

You could even use LINQ to select all of the labels from the Controls property if you want.

-Frinny