vb.net findcontrol by a part of id

Question

I need to find a control in one page but I don't know the complete ID. I only know a part of the ID.

What I wan't to do is something like this:

control = Page.FindControl(part1 & part2)

Where part1 is the known part of the ID and part2 is the unknown part.

Answer 1

For what it's worth, you could use this extension method which searches all child controls:

Module ControlExtensions
    <Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension()>
    Public Function FindControlPart(root As Control, IdStart As String) As Control
        Dim controls As New Stack(Of Control)(root.Controls.Cast(Of Control)())
        While controls.Count > 0
            Dim currentControl As Control = controls.Pop()
            If currentControl.ID.StartsWith(IdStart, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) Then
                Return currentControl
            End If
            For Each child As Control In currentControl.Controls
                controls.Push(child)
            Next
        End While
        Return Nothing
    End Function
End Module

Usage:

Dim control As Control = Page.FindControlPart(part1)

It returns the first control which start with a given ID-Part. So it's possible that you get the wrong. It's less error-prone if you use the correct NamingContainer instead of the Page as root.