C# ListBox Control

The ListBox control enables you to display a list of items to the user that the user can select by clicking.

In addition to display and selection functionality, the ListBox also provides features that enable you to efficiently add items to the ListBox and to find text within the items of the list. You can use the Add or Insert method to add items to a list box. The Add method adds new items at the end of an unsorted list box.

  listBox1.Items.Add("Sunday");

If you want to retrieve a single selected item to a variable , you can code like this

  string var;
  var = listBox1.Text;

The SelectionMode property determines how many items in the list can be selected at a time. A ListBox control can provide single or multiple selections using the SelectionMode property . If you change the selection mode property to multiple select , then you will retrieve a collection of items from ListBox1.SelectedItems property.

  listBox1.SelectionMode = SelectionMode.MultiSimple;

The following C# program initially fill seven days in a week while in the form load event and set the selection mode property to MultiSimple. At the Button click event it will display the selected items.

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication1
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            listBox1.Items.Add("Sunday");
            listBox1.Items.Add("Monday");
            listBox1.Items.Add("Tuesday");
            listBox1.Items.Add("Wednesday");
            listBox1.Items.Add("Thursday");
            listBox1.Items.Add("Friday");
            listBox1.Items.Add("Saturday");

            listBox1.SelectionMode = SelectionMode.MultiSimple;
        }

        private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            foreach (Object obj in listBox1.SelectedItems )
            {
                MessageBox.Show(obj.ToString ());
            }
        }
    }
}