Bind to Object Itself, Not One of It's Properties

Question

Using Asp.net's Bind() method, how do I bind to the object itself, not one of it's properties?

Answer 1

I think what Ryan means here like if you have to an object like this

public class Person
{
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

And if you bind Person object to anywhere in GridView or Repeater to any DataSource you only bind Person and it get a default bind value from one of its properties. support we have a variable Ryan from Person type so i want to get the variable value from calling <%# Eval("Ryan") %> not <%# Eval("Ryan.FirstName") %>

I tried to put an attribute DefaultBindingProperty for the class but it's not working

[System.ComponentModel.DefaultBindingProperty("FirstName")]
public class Person
{
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

So does any one knows how to do it properly?

Answer 2

I ended up working around this by adding a property called SelfReference that simply returns this. If anyone reads this and has a better solution, I'd like to hear it.

Answer 3

You may use Container.DataItem instead: Item='<%# Container.DataItem %>'

Answer 4

I'm not sure to what exactly you want to bind. The only thing that would make sense to me at the moment is to bind to some UI control, say a DropDown control for instance.

There usually some text properties for the value being displayed and value properties for the actual value to function as identifier. On the Dropdown

• DataTextField
• DataValueField

There you specify DataTextField = "Firstname" and DataValueField = "Id" given that you have an object that has properties "Firstname" and "Id".

On lists you can use the Eval function directly on your ASPX code or you add server-side controls (i.e. Literals, Labels) inside the list templates and implement the ItemDataBound event (taking the Repeater as example). Here's a good example which illustrates this further.

Hope I was able to help a little ;)