Question

I have a situation where ItemsSource property of a DataGrid is an array of integers. These integers are the keys to a corresponding dictionary. What I need to display in columns are the fields, that are members of the dictionary values objects.

<DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding Path=thisDataContext, ElementName=control, Mode=OneWay}" 
          AutoGenerateColumns="False">                                                
    <DataGrid.Columns>
        <DataGridTextColumn Header="Name" Width="0.3*" Binding="{Binding Converter={StaticResource IntToPersonConverter}, Mode=OneWay }"  />
        <DataGridTextColumn Header="Department" Width="0.3*" Binding="{Binding Path=DepartmentIDX, Converter={StaticResource DepartmentConverter}, Mode=OneWay }" />
        <DataGridTextColumn Header="Position" Width="0.3*" Binding="{Binding Path=EmployeeTypeIDX, Converter={StaticResource EmployeeTypeConverter}, Mode=OneWay }" />
    </DataGrid.Columns>     
</DataGrid>

The object of a class Person I’m working with have Properties – Department and Position ids, so I’ve implemented multiple Converters – Person to Department name and Person to Postition name. I have no idea how to combine all of them. I thought that would be possible if I could set DataContext properties to the DataGrid Rows. So I could pass a Person object to a Convertor.

Answer 1

There’s no much point in exercising WPF futures such as binding converters etc just for the sake of proving that they work – they do. The number of calls to converter is going to be massive, which isn’t elegant at least and is easily avoidable. I’d suggest that you pre-process your collection before setting grid’s ItemsSource.

I would personally use LINQ projectsions, and establish the dictionaries as static members of your class. Give us a shout and I’ll post a sample.

Update 1 – Sample Code

public class Person
    {
        private static Dictionary<int, string> Departments;

        static Person()
        {
            Person.SetUpDictionaries();
        }

        private static void SetUpDictionaries()
        {
            Person.Departments = new Dictionary<int, string>(3)
            {
                { 1, "IT" },
                { 1, "Finance" },
                { 1, "HR" }
            };
        }

        public int DepartmentId
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        public string Depratment
        {
            get { return Person.Departments[this.DepartmentId]; }
        }
    }