[C#] Possible to loop through a list of variables, with names differ by numbers only?

Question

For example in Windows Form, you have textboxes textbox0 to textbox29 and you need to assign them all to an array. What I currently can think of is to do this:

array[0] = textbox0;
array[1] = textbox1;
...
array[29] = textbox29;

Is it possile for me to do sth like this:

for(int i=0; i<30; i++)
{
    array[i] = textbox + i; 
 //and some magic is done such tt this is a variable, eg. textbox1
}

Answer 1

From the top of my head:

int i = 0;
foreach (Control c in FormX.Controls)
{
    int i2;
    if (c.Name.StartsWith("textbox") && int.TryParse(c.Name.Substring(7),out i2))
    {
        array[i] = c;
        i++;
    }
}
array = array.OrderBy(a => Convert.ToInt32(a.Name.Substring(7))).ToArray();

Answer 2

Well, you could use reflection... but personally I'd try to avoid creating all those separate variables to start with. For example, if you really need designer support, you could avoid creating separate variables but create the array by finding the controls by name.

Alternatively, if you can just autogenerate the controls programmatically in a loop, I'd do that.

Answer 3

this.Controls.OfType<TextBox>().ToArray()

should work. It selects the controls which are TextBox and then converts them to an array.