Question

I’m trying to understand better how data binding works in .net. I was checking this article, and I came up with this code:

public partial class Form1 : Form//, INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler MyTextChanged;

    [System.ComponentModel.Bindable(true)]
    public string MyText
    {
        get { return textBox1.Text; }
        set 
        {
            textBox1.Text = value;
            if (MyTextChanged != null)
                MyTextChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("MyText"));
        }
    }

    MyClass myClass { get; set; }

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        myClass = new MyClass();
        Binding binding = new Binding("MyText", myClass, "Dic");
        binding.Parse += new ConvertEventHandler(binding_Parse);
        binding.Format += new ConvertEventHandler(binding_Format);
        DataBindings.Add(binding);
        myClass.AddStuff("uno", "UNO");
    }

    void OnMyTextChanged(PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (MyTextChanged != null) MyTextChanged(this, e);
    }

    void binding_Format(object sender, ConvertEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.Value is Dictionary<string, string>)
        {
            Dictionary<string, string> source = (Dictionary<string, string>)e.Value;
            e.Value = source.Count.ToString();
        }
    }

    void binding_Parse(object sender, ConvertEventArgs e)
    {
        MessageBox.Show(e.DesiredType.ToString());
    }

    private void changemyClassButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        myClass.AddStuff(myClass.Dic.Count.ToString(), "'" + myClass.Dic.Count.ToString() + "'");
    }

    private void changeMyTextButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        MyText = "1234";
    }
}

public class MyClass : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

    public Dictionary<string, string> Dic { get; set; }

    public MyClass()
    {
        Dic = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    }

    public void AddStuff(string key, string value)
    {
        Dic.Add(key, value);
        if (PropertyChanged != null) PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Dic"));
    }
}

I’m trying to bind MyText to myClass. The problem is that the function binding_Parse is never being called. I know I could probably bind textBox1.Text directly to myClass, or that there might be a thousand other possible ways to do what I’m trying to do, but this is just a practice; I’m trying to understand better data binding. So I want to bind a custom object to a custom property so I can see the process from end to end. The custom object is myClass, and the custom property is MyText. I’ve tried all kinds of variations, like implementing INotifyPropertyChanged, but I can’t get binding_Parse to be called (I would expect it to be called when I call changeMyTextButton_Click). Am I missing something?

Edit:
To put it simpler: I want to write a user control with a property string MyText that then a user can bind to something else, the same way you can bind a TextBox‘s Text property to something else. So I don’t want to bind to the property of a control to an object, I want to write a control with a property that then a user can bind to an object.

Answer 1

OK I figured it out in case anyone had the same problem. I had to create an event handler named MyTextChanged to let the Binding knows MyText is changing, and set the Bindings DataSourceUpdateMode property to OnPropertyChanged. Using this simple principle I can bind a pixel in my screen to the rest of the universe :). Here’s the code:

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public event EventHandler MyTextChanged;

    [Bindable(true)]
    public string MyText
    {
        get { return textBox1.Text; }
        set 
        {
            if (textBox1.Text != value)
            {
                textBox1.Text = value;
                OnMyTextChanged();
            }
        }
    }

    MyClass myClass { get; set; }

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        myClass = new MyClass();
        Binding binding = new Binding("MyText", myClass, "Dic");
        binding.DataSourceUpdateMode = DataSourceUpdateMode.OnPropertyChanged;
        binding.Parse += new ConvertEventHandler(binding_Parse);
        binding.Format += new ConvertEventHandler(binding_Format);
        DataBindings.Add(binding);
        myClass.AddStuff("uno", "UNO");
    }

    void OnMyTextChanged()
    {
        if (MyTextChanged != null) MyTextChanged(this, EventArgs.Empty);
    }

    void binding_Format(object sender, ConvertEventArgs e)
    {
        if (e.Value is Dictionary<string, string>)
        {
            Dictionary<string, string> source = (Dictionary<string, string>)e.Value;
            e.Value = source.Count.ToString();
        }
    }

    void binding_Parse(object sender, ConvertEventArgs e)
    {
        MessageBox.Show(e.DesiredType.ToString());

    }

    private void changemyClassButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        myClass.AddStuff(myClass.Dic.Count.ToString(), "'" + myClass.Dic.Count.ToString() + "'");
    }

    private void changeMyTextButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        MyText = "1234";
    }
}

public class MyClass : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

    public Dictionary<string, string> Dic { get; set; }

    public MyClass()
    {
        Dic = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    }

    public void AddStuff(string key, string value)
    {
        Dic.Add(key, value);
        if (PropertyChanged != null) PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Dic"));
    }
}