Selected TaxonmyField from TaxonomyWebTaggingControl

Question

I'm trying to retrieve the selected TaxonomyField value that the user selects from the TaxonomyWebTaggingControl rather than just a string representation. The idea being to eventually create a TaxonomyFieldValue object from that result. i.e.

string selectedTaxonomyTerm = this.TaxonomyWebTaggingControl.Text; // represents the selected term's Label | Guid

TaxonomyFieldValue taxonomyFieldValue = TaxonomyFieldControl.GetTaxonomyValue(selectedTaxonomyTerm); // Converts to a TaxonomyFieldValue object, however ValidateString throws exception because no TaxonomyField is assigned.

// what i want
var selectedTaxonomyField = this.TaxonomyWebTaggingControl.Field // Get the selected Field 
var newTaxonomyValue = new TaxonomyFieldValue(selectedTaxonomyField);
newTaxonomyValue.PopulateFromLabelGuidPair(selectedTaxonomyTerm);

So basically i want a way to retrieve the underlying TaxonomyField from the selection of the TaxonomyWebTaggingControl. Any help would be great.

Answer 1

Just get the field from the list and then cast it to a TaxonomyField like this:

SPListItem item = ...;
TaxonomyField taxField = item.Fields["FieldName"] as TaxonomyField;
TaxonomyFieldValue taxFieldValue = new TaxonomyFieldValue(taxField);
taxFieldValue.PopulateFromLabelGuidPair(taxonomyCtrl.Text);

Answer 2

I like Wictor's answer and already vote it up. But it might not fit your question, so I'll add my 2 cents here too.

Another approach you might want to explore, if you're looking for a more abstract way of putting this in the control, could be to go through the TaxonomyHiddenList, look for a term based on your label, and get all the information you need from the TaxonomySession. Is it worth the extra trouble? What is your scenario?