How To Determine Selected Control from Array of Option Buttons (147673)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Visual Basic Learning Edition for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Learning Edition for Windows 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition for Windows 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition for Windows 5.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition for Windows 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Standard Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
This article was previously published under Q147673

SUMMARY

This article describes a function you can use to determine which option button in a control array is selected.

MORE INFORMATION

A common programming task in Visual Basic, given a control array of option buttons, is to determine which option button in the array is selected. The option button that is selected will have its Value property set to True, while all others will have Value properties of False. This article outlines a short function that will return the index of the selected option button when it is passed a reference to a control array of option buttons. It will work correctly even when some indexes are skipped or not present in the control array. In addition, to avoid logic errors in writing code, it will fail and return a -1 if it is passed a control array of another type of object (like a check box). The function was contributed by Bruce McKinney, author of Hardcore Visual Basic, which is published by Microsoft Press.

The code for the function is: 
Function GetOption(opts As Object) As Integer
    On Error GoTo GetOptionFail
    Dim opt As OptionButton
    For Each opt In opts
        If opt.Value Then
            GetOption = opt.Index
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next

GetOptionFail:
    GetOption = -1

End Function
This function can be called like this: 
myVariable = GetOption(optMyButtons)   'Control syntax OK
myVariable = GetOption(optMyButtons()) 'Array syntax OK
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/1/2004
Keywords:kbhowto KB147673
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