How to: Create a Binding in Code

This example shows how to create and set a Binding in code.

Example

The FrameworkElement class and the FrameworkContentElement class both expose a SetBinding method. If you are binding an element that inherits either of these classes, you can call the SetBinding method directly.

The following example creates a class named, MyData, which contains a property named MyDataProperty.

C#
public class MyData : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    private string myDataProperty;

    public MyData() { }

    public MyData(DateTime dateTime)
    {
        myDataProperty = "Last bound time was " + dateTime.ToLongTimeString();
    }

    public String MyDataProperty
    {
        get { return myDataProperty; }
        set
        {
            myDataProperty = value;
            OnPropertyChanged("MyDataProperty");
        }
    }

    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

    private void OnPropertyChanged(string info)
    {
        PropertyChangedEventHandler handler = PropertyChanged;
        if (handler != null)
        {
            handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(info));
        }
    }
}

The following example shows how to create a binding object to set the source of the binding. The example uses SetBinding to bind the Text property of myText, which is a TextBlock control, to MyDataProperty.

C#
// Make a new source.
MyData myDataObject = new MyData(DateTime.Now);
Binding myBinding = new Binding("MyDataProperty");
myBinding.Source = myDataObject;
// Bind the new data source to the myText TextBlock control's Text dependency property.
myText.SetBinding(TextBlock.TextProperty, myBinding);

For the complete code sample, see Code-only Binding Sample.

Instead of calling SetBinding, you can use the SetBinding static method of the BindingOperations class. The following example, calls BindingOperations.SetBinding instead of FrameworkElement.SetBinding to bind myText to myDataProperty.

C#
//make a new source
MyData myDataObject = new MyData(DateTime.Now);
Binding myBinding = new Binding("MyDataProperty");
myBinding.Source = myDataObject;
BindingOperations.SetBinding(myText, TextBlock.TextProperty, myBinding);

See also