Difference between SelectedItem, SelectedValue and SelectedValuePath

Understanding the Difference between SelectedItem, SelectedValue, and SelectedValuePath 🤔📝

Are you confused about the differences between SelectedItem, SelectedValue, and SelectedValuePath in WPF or UWP? 🤷‍♀️ Don't worry, you're not alone! Many developers struggle with understanding these terms and when to use them. In this blog post, we'll break down each concept and provide easy-to-understand explanations and examples.

SelectedItem 🎯

Let's start with SelectedItem. This property represents the actual object that is selected in a Selector control, such as a ListBox or ComboBox. When an item is selected, the SelectedItem property stores the entire object as a reference.

Example: Imagine you have a ListBox control filled with a list of Person objects, each with a Name and Age property. When you select a person from the list, the SelectedItem property will hold the selected Person object itself.

// Get the selected person object
Person selectedPerson = (Person)listBox.SelectedItem;

SelectedValue ✅

Next up is SelectedValue. This property represents a specific value from the selected item in a Selector control. Unlike SelectedItem, which stores the entire object, SelectedValue can be set to any consistent value of your choice, typically a property value from the selected item.

Example: Let's say you have a ComboBox control filled with a list of Country objects, each with a Name and Code property. When you select a country, you might want to store just the Code value of the selected country, rather than the entire Country object. The SelectedValue property allows you to achieve this.

// Get the selected country code
string selectedCountryCode = (string)comboBox.SelectedValue;

SelectedValuePath 🗝️

Lastly, we have SelectedValuePath. This property specifies the path to the value that will be saved in the SelectedValue property, allowing you to extract a specific property value from the selected item.

Example: Suppose you have a ComboBox control populated with a collection of Product objects, each with properties like Name, Price, and ID. You can use the SelectedValuePath property to specify the path to the ID property, and the SelectedValue property will automatically be assigned the selected item's ID value.

// Set the SelectedValuePath to "ID"
comboBox.SelectedValuePath = "ID";

// Get the selected product ID
int selectedProductID = (int)comboBox.SelectedValue;

Recap and Wrap Up 🎉

To summarize:

• SelectedItem stores the entire object that is selected in a Selector control.

• SelectedValue stores a specific value from the selected item, typically a property value.

• SelectedValuePath specifies the path to the value within the selected item that will be saved in SelectedValue.

Remember, the key difference between SelectedItem and SelectedValue is that SelectedItem stores the object itself, while SelectedValue stores a specific property value from that object. SelectedValuePath is simply a way to define which property value should be saved in SelectedValue.

Next time you encounter these properties in your WPF or UWP project, you'll hopefully have a clear understanding of their differences and use cases. 🚀

If you found this blog post helpful, we would love to hear your thoughts and experiences! Let us know in the comments below. Happy coding! 💻💡

References:

• MSDN: SelectedItem

• MSDN: SelectedValue

• MSDN: SelectedValuePath

• MSDN: Selector Class