WPF Clicking on a dynamic menu item and returning the name?

Question

I have a file menu, where on load, some menuItems are populated from filenames in a directory.

<MenuItem 
    x:Name="LayoutLoad" 
    Header="Load saved layout" 
    HorizontalAlignment="Left" 
    Width="200"
    />

//on load (code behind)

string[] filePaths = Directory.GetFiles("Settings/layouts");
for (int i = 0; i < filePaths.Count(); i++)
{
    MenuItem item = new MenuItem {
        Header = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(filePaths[i]),
        Name = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(filePaths[i])
    };
    item.Click += new RoutedEventHandler(Chooselayout);
    LayoutLoad.Items.Add(item);
}

My click event linked to the items is:

public void Chooselayout(Object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{

     string fileName = ((MenuItem)sender).Name;
     var serializer = new XmlLayoutSerializer(dockingManager);

     using (var stream = new StreamReader(fileName))
         serializer.Deserialize(stream);
}

the line string fileName = ((MenuItem)sender).Name; fails. Can I return the name of the clicked item in this way? Am I simply casting wrongly? Or going about this in the incorrect way?

Thank you.

Answer 1

The rules for element names in WPF are stricter than the rules for paths and file names. For example, I don't believe Name can contain spaces or slashes. I suggest you use Tag instead (and cast back to string in your handler).

Also, look at how you are listing your files:

Directory.GetFiles("Settings/layouts")

You are looking for files that exist in <working directory>/Settings/layouts/ . Yet, when you create your StreamReader , you are only giving it the name of the file, so it's going to look for the file in <working directory>/ . You need to give it the absolute path or the full relative path.