Question

I would like to modify the control template for the DataGrid (4.0 version) but I am not sure what the existing template looks like. Does anyone know what it is or where I could find it?

In general: For some WPF control, how can I see the default content the respective control template?

Answer 1

I would recommend going into Blend (if you have it) and extracting the Template. Otherwise, you can get the XAML using XAMLWriter.

This unfortunately named page (I don’t think this is really “Kid’s Stuff”, do you?) has an example of doing both of these things.

In case the page does happen to go away (2009 is pretty far in the rear-view mirror):

// Get the template from the control
YourControlType ctl = new YourControlType();
ctl.UpdateDefaultStyle();
ControlTemplate template = ctl.Template;

// We want our xaml of be properly indented, ohterwise
// we would not be able to indent them.
XmlWriterSettings xmlSettings = new XmlWriterSettings();
xmlSettings.Indent = true;

// Make the string builder
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(sb, xmlSettings);
XamlWriter.Save(template, writer);


// Now the sb.ToString() should give us the template

All credit to Shafqat Ahmed.