How to bind an ItemsSource to a private property

Question

How to bind WPF an ItemsSource to a private property?

<ComboBox x:Name="xxx" ItemsSource="{Binding Items, Mode=OneWay}"
          DisplayMemberPath="ItemName"/>

public partial class ItemBuySellAddEdit : BasePage
{
    private List<Item> Items { get; set; }
}

Items list will be populated while the form loads.

Answer 1

If you really really wanted to do this, you would have to provide a custom type descriptor, by implementing ICustomTypeDescriptor - that provides the extra property via a custom PropertyDescriptor alongisde the regular public properties. You can implement this interface on the type itself, or via TypeDescriptionProvider; the latter is preferred, as it works in more scenarios (things like empty lists, without needing to also provide a custom list with an ITypedList implementation). This is a lot of work, and it really isn't worth it except in extreme cases. But it can be done.

Answer 2

DataBinding in WPF works only with public properties.

MSDN:

The properties you use as binding source properties for a binding must be public properties of your class. Explicitly defined interface properties cannot be accessed for binding purposes, nor can protected, private, internal, or virtual properties that have no base implementation