Retrieve the Selected Item of a DropDownList kept inside a UserControl

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I have often seen developers struggling with accessing properties of controls kept inside a UserControl. This post will show you how to retrieve the selected Item of a DropDownList kept inside a UserControl.

Let us assume that we have a UserControl called UserControlOne.ascx

<%@ Control Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true"
CodeFile="UserControlOne.ascx.cs" Inherits="UserControlOne" %>

<asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server">
</asp:DropDownList>

The code to populate the UserControl is as shown below (UserControlOne.ascx.cs):

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (!Page.IsPostBack)
    {
        string[] names = DateTimeFormatInfo.CurrentInfo.MonthNames;
        DropDownList1.DataSource = names;
        DropDownList1.DataBind();
    }
}

We will now register this UserControl to a page as shown below:

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default16.aspx.cs"
Inherits="Default16" %>
<%@ Register TagPrefix="UC" TagName="DDL" src="UserControlOne.ascx"%>

Now to access the selected item of the dropdownlist kept inside the usercontrol, use the following code on the Button click event:

protected void btnFetch_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
 UserControl ucOne = ((UserControl)(FindControl("DDLOne")));
DropDownList ddlOne = ((DropDownList)(ucOne.FindControl("DropDownList1")));
 if (ddlOne.SelectedIndex > -1)
     Label1.Text = ddlOne.SelectedItem.Value;
}

OUTPUT

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About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, Developer Technologies MVP (Microsoft Most Valuable Professional) is the founder and contributor for DevCurry, DotNetCurry and SQLServerCurry. He is the Chief Editor of a Developer Magazine called DNC Magazine. He has also authored two Books - 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls. and The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.

Follow him on twitter @suprotimagarwal.