Question

I once had a WinForms application in which I used a static class for simple string resources. In this class I had constant strings I could acces. One of those strings consisted of the value of another constant, plus its own value. Something like this:

private const string Path = @"C:\SomeFolder\";
public const string FileOne = Path + "FileOne.txt";
public const string FileTwo = Path + "FileTwo.txt";

Now I have a WPF application and I am using a ResourceDictionary, which I merged to Application scope. Everything works fine, but I want something similar like the C# code above. This is what I already have:

<ResourceDictionary xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
                    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
                    xmlns:System="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib">

    <System:String x:Key="Path">C:\SomeFolder\</System:String>
    <System:String x:Key="FileOne">FileOne.txt</System:String>
    <System:String x:Key="FileTwo">FileTwo.txt</System:String>

</ResourceDictionary>

Now I need something (some kind of reference to ‘Path’) that is automatically added to the two file-strings, it doesn’t need to be private like in the C# code. Does anyone know how I can achieve this?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

If you want to use it i XAML, here are two ideas for you:

Idea 1: one Binding

In your resources, only add the Path:

<System:String x:Key="Path">C:\SomeFolder\</System:String>

And, somewhere in your XAML:

<TextBlock Text='{Binding Source={StaticResource Path}, StringFormat={}{0}FileOne.txt}' />

This will display Path+”FileOne.txt”

(note: you can write whatever you want instead of FileOne.txt )

You can have custom stuff using this way.

Idea 2: One MultiBinding

More convenient for what you are trying to do imho: you keep those three Resources you defined.

If you want to call them somewhere so that Path + fileOne will be displayed, just use that (example with a TextBlock )

    <TextBlock >
        <TextBlock.Text>
            <MultiBinding StringFormat="{}{0}{1}">
                <Binding Source="{StaticResource Path}" />
                <Binding Source="{StaticResource FileOne}" />
            </MultiBinding>
        </TextBlock.Text>
    </TextBlock>

That’s all you need!

Alternatively if you don’t use those Strings in your UI, you can still use a static class. But using the XAML way is cleaner imho (all UI-related stuff should stay in XAML anyway)