Silverlight 2 Unleashed

Chapter 18 Data Binding and Using Data Controls

In This Chapter

Understanding Data Binding

Digging in the Binding Class

Setting the DataContext

Using Data Controls

Using XML Data Sources

Data binding was not invented for Windows Presentation Foundation or Silverlight. In technologies such as ASP.NET, you can already bind a data control to a data source. However, data binding was reserved for data controls only. In Silverlight, you can data bind almost any property to any other property.

When a property is data bound to another property (and when certain conditions are met—we’ll talk about that soon), the value of the two properties will be kept in sync. The neat thing is that you can bind many different types together. For example, you can ...