ASP Multiselect listbox separator

I have encountered a problem and I didn't manage to find any soultions yet. Let me simplify things a bit.

I have 2 forms, the first contains an ASP ListBox with multi select mode enabled. I submit the form and in the other form I use just for testing purposes this snippet of code:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        foreach (string formKey in Request.Form.AllKeys)
        {
            if (formKey != null)
            {
开发者_运维知识库                if (formKey.Equals("ctl00$MainContent$ListBox1"))
                    Label1.Text = Request.Form[formKey];
            }
        }  
    }

The problems is that the values that come from the listbox (the values that i selected in the previous form) are separated by "," for ex. "test1,test2,test3". How can i change this separator to "$" for example? I need to change it because the actual values may contain "," and i don't manualy feed them to the listbox.

I can't use any other mode of transfering this values between the form because the entire application uses this model. The values that i get are then sent to a workflow where there will be manipulated and in the workflow i need to know where each listbox item starts and ends so it must be an unique separator.

Any help is apreciated! Thank you very much

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Thank you MatteKarla but unfortunately this does not solve my problem. Yes, this is a good way of transfering the values from one form to another.

However i must use the method I described above with Request form keys because the listbox is one of many others "parameters" that are generated at runtime and have their values sent to a workflow method that takes this values. And i can't afford to change that in my application.

My problem is that coma (",") separator is used by default with a multiselect listbox.

I thought that there maybe is a method to change that separator from coma to another char because the coma can also be included in the value itself and this will create confusion.

As i said if i select three values test1, test2 and test3, the result with my method will be a string looking like "test1,test2,test3". However a "test1$test2$test3" would be much better.

But I'm affraid that changing this default separator is not possbile. I must think at a method to overcome this problem like replacing before feeding the listbox all the intended coma from the values with some other char not to create confusion. But this is not a great way of doing it.

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On your first page/form (First.aspx.cs) create a public property with the listbox:

public ListBox PostedListBox { get { return ListBox1; } }

Set the postback-url for the button to Second.aspx

Second page in the aspx-file after the @Page-directive add:

<%@ PreviousPageType VirtualPath="~/First.aspx" %>

Then in Form_Load on Second.aspx.cs you can extract the values:

if (PreviousPage != null)
{
    ListBox postedListbox = PreviousPage.PostedListBox;
    foreach (var index in postedListbox.GetSelectedIndices())
    {
        var itemText = postedListbox.Items[index].Text;
    }
}

Or you could just try to locate the control by using:

if (PreviousPage != null)
{
  var control = PreviousPage.FindControl("ListBox1") as ListBox;
}

Third Edit:

You could use GetValues:

Request.Form.GetValues("ctl00$MainContent$ListBox1");

returns a string array containing each of the selected items.