IDataObject.GetData Method

IDataObject.GetData Method

Class

System.Windows.Forms.IDataObject

Syntax

 GetData(   format   [,   autoconvert   ])

format (required; String or Type object): Field member of the DataFormats class (see later for more information on this) or a Type object representing the format of the data
autoconvert (optional; Boolean): True to convert the data to the specified format

Return value

An Object that contains Clipboard data in the specified format

Description

Retrieves the data of the given format, optionally converting the data format

Rules at a Glance

The format argument can be one of the following string values:

DataFormats.Bitmap

DataFormats.CommaSeparatedValue

DataFormats.Dib

DataFormats.Dif

DataFormats.EnhancedMetafile

DataFormats.FileDrop

DataFormats.Html

DataFormats.Locale

DataFormats.MetafilePict

DataFormats.OemText

DataFormats.Palette

DataFormats.PenData

DataFormats.Riff

DataFormats.Rtf

DataFormats.Serializable (a format that encapsulates any type of Windows Forms object)

DataFormats.StringFormat

DataFormats.SymbolicLink

DataFormats.Text

DataFormats.Tiff

DataFormats.UnicodeText

DataFormats.WaveAudio
If format is a string, the autoconvert argument can be supplied in the method call.
If the GetData method cannot find data in format , it attempts to convert the data to format . If the data cannot be converted to the format , or if the data was stored with autoconvert set to False , the method returns Nothing .

Example

The following example extracts the text that is currently on the Clipboard:

 ' Declare IDataObject variable and get clipboard IDataObject Dim di As IDataObject = Clipboard.GetDataObject Dim obj As Object ' Call GetData method of IDataObject object to get clipboard data obj = di.GetData(DataFormats.Text, False) ' Show the text, if any If obj Is Nothing Then    MsgBox("No text on clipboard.") Else    MsgBox(CStr(obj)) End If