VB.Net : How do you bind a dictionary collection to a Combobox? - vb.net-2010

Question

I am trying to bind this dictionary collection to a combobox but the display
is not correct. The displayMember should be the ProvName and the ValueMember should be the key.
Private Sub Button8_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles Button8.Click
Dim Country1 As Dictionary(Of String, Province)
Country1 = Module1.CreateCountry
'Display results in combox
ComboBox3.DataSource = New BindingSource(Country1, Nothing)
ComboBox2.DisplayMember = "Value"
ComboBox2.ValueMember = "Key"
End Sub
Module Module1
Public provinces As CollectionBase
Function CreateCountry() As Dictionary(Of String, Province)
Dim Country As New Dictionary(Of String, Province)
Dim Prov As Province
Prov = New Province
With Prov
.Abbrv = "Qc"
.ProvName = "Quebec"
.Population = "7 500 000"
.Region = "East"
End With
Country.Add(Prov.Abbrv, Prov)
Prov = New Province
With Prov
.Abbrv = "BC"
.ProvName = "British Columbia"
.Population = "4 500 000"
.Region = "West"
End With
Country.Add(Prov.Abbrv, Prov)
Prov = New Province
With Prov
.Abbrv = "NS"
.ProvName = "Nova Scotia"
.Population = "2 000 000"
.Region = "Maritimes"
End With
Country.Add(Prov.Abbrv, Prov)
Prov = New Province
With Prov
.Abbrv = "AB"
.ProvName = "Alberta"
.Population = "5 500 000"
.Region = "Prairies"
End With
Country.Add(Prov.Abbrv, Prov)
Return Country
End Function
End Module
Public Class Province
Public Property Abbrv As String
Public Property ProvName As String
Public Property Population As String
Public Property Region As String
Public Overrides Function ToString() As String
Return ProvName
End Function
End Class

Answer 1

Here is the sample source code:
'Declare and Fill a generic Dictionary
Dim dictionary As New Dictionary(Of String, Integer)
dictionary.Add("one", 1)
dictionary.Add("two", 2)
dictionary.Add("three", 3)
dictionary.Add("four", 4)
dictionary.Add("five", 5)
dictionary.Add("six", 6)
dictionary.Add("seven", 7)
dictionary.Add("eight", 8)
'Initialize DisplayMember and ValueMember of an existing combobox to be filled with dictionary values
cboCombo.DisplayMember = "Key"
cboCombo.ValueMember = "Value"
'Bind the combobox to dictionary
cboCombo.DataSource = New BindingSource(dictionary, Nothing)
'Now I can assign the selected value of combobox with this simple command:
cboCombo.SelectedValue = 4
'I can also retrive the selected value with:
value = cboCombo.SelectedValue
If this help you mark as answer

Answer 2

This is just an example of using a dictionary to bind data to a combobox.
Declare dictionary object and initialize it with values as follows:
Dim dcItems As New Dictionary(Of String, Integer)
lstTPAType.Add("Select", -1)
lstTPAType.Add("Item 1", 0)
lstTPAType.Add("Item 2", 1)
lstTPAType.Add("Item ", 2)
cmbMyCombo.DataSource = New BindingSource(dcItems, Nothing)
cmbMyCombo.ValueMember = "Value"
cmbMyCombo.DisplayMember = "Key"
Hope this generic solution will help developers looking for it.