Question

I need TextBox which will reflect changes in databound string. I tried following code:

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    string m_sFirstName = "Brad";
    public string FirstName
    {
        get { return m_sFirstName; }
        set { m_sFirstName = value; }
    }

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        textBox1.DataBindings.Add("Text", this, "FirstName");
    }

    private void buttonRename_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        MessageBox.Show("before: " + FirstName);
        FirstName = "John";
        MessageBox.Show("after: " + FirstName);
    }
}

After launching an application, textBox1 is correctly filled with Brad.
I clicked the Button, it renamed FirstName to “John” (second messagebox confirms it).
But the textBox1 is still filled with Brad, not with John. Why? What will make this work?

Answer 1

The reason why the DataBinding is not reflecting your changes is because you are binding a simple System.String object which have not been designed to throw events when modified.

So you have 2 choices. One is to rebind the value when in the Click event of your button (please avoid!). The other is to make a custom class that will implement INotifyPropertyChanged like this:

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public Person TheBoss { get; set; }

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        TheBoss = new Person { FirstName = "John" };

        textBox1.DataBindings.Add("Text", this, "TheBoss.FirstName");
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        TheBoss.FirstName = "Mike";
    }


    public class Person : INotifyPropertyChanged
    {
        private string firstName;

        public string FirstName
        {
            get 
            { 
                return firstName; 
            }
            set 
            { 
                firstName = value;
                NotifyPropertyChanged("FirstName");
            }
        }

        private void NotifyPropertyChanged(String info)
        {
            if (PropertyChanged != null)
            {
                PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(info));
            }
        }

        #region INotifyPropertyChanged Members

        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        #endregion
    }
}

INotifyPropertyChanged documentation : MSDN