Return the text from a dropdown box rather than the index number

Question

I have the following VBA code (from MS Access 2007). The code creates a new workbook and adds a dropdown to a cell. This small snippet adds a drop down to a particular cell

Answer 1

I was trying to find a neater way of doing this so might as well ressurect this question :) Here's how I have been solving this problem. I create an array of the items I want to fill the drop down with. Then using this array you can return the string associated with the index you get from the drop down.

First create a function to return an array of strings:

' Returns a string array of drop down items
function dditems() as string()

    Dim array(2) As String

    array(1) = "cats"
    array(2) = "dogs"

    dditems = array

end function

Then use this array to populate your drop down:

' To populate your drop down
sub populatedd()

    dim dd As DropDown
    dim i As Integer 
    dim itemsArray() As String

    ' Create the dd object and item array
    set dd = Worksheets("Sheet1").DropDowns("Drop Down 1")
    set itemsArray = dditems()

    ' Loop through the array to populate the drop down
    for i = 1 to UBound(itemsArray)

        dd.AddItem (itemsArray(i))

    next i
end

Then by using this array again you can use the following code to get the string associate with the drop down index selected:

' Get the string associated with the index
sub showDDResult()

    dim dd As DropDown
    dim itemsArray() As String

    ' Create the dd object and item array
    set dd = Worksheets("Sheet1").DropDowns("Drop Down 1")
    set itemsArray = dditems()

    ' dd.ListIndex returns index, call to array returns correct string
    MsgBox("Item selected is " & itemsArray(dd.ListIndex))
end