Selecting custom Objects from a ComboBox

Earlier this week someone asked me how he could select custom objects from a ComboBox. Here is the code he used:

private void FillComboBoxPersons(List<person> persons) {
 this.comboBoxPersons.Items.Clear();
 this.comboBoxPersons.Items.Add( "--- Select Person -------------------" );
 foreach ( Person person in persons ) {
  this.comboBoxPersons.Items.Add( person.Name );
 }
 this.comboBoxPersons.SelectedIndex = 0;
}

In order to get the selected item he then used the SelectedIndex property to lookup the Person in a cache of the persons collection.

Here is an approach that doesn’t require you to have a cache of the collection (Since the persons are already stored in the items):

private void FillComboBoxPersons(List<person> persons) {
 this.comboBoxPersons.Items.Clear();
 this.comboBoxPersons.Items.Add( "--- Select Person -------------------" );
 this.comboBoxPersons.DisplayMember = "Name";
 foreach ( Person person in persons ) {
  this.comboBoxPersons.Items.Add( person );
 }
 this.comboBoxPersons.SelectedIndex = 0;
}

Now you can easily access the selected item through the SelectedValue property.