What is the use of Path= in XAML?

Question

I use a lot of bindings in XAML and sometimes I use path= in a binding and sometimes not. In which cases do I need the path= and when can I omit this?

Answer 1

It can always be omitted as it's the default property of the Binding XAML extension. It's only specified explicitly for clarity when multiple properties are used.

Answer 2

This is due to the fact that the Binding class has a default constructor, used when you have bindings like {Binding FallbackValue='HelloWorld', Path=MyProperty} and a constructor that has a single argument Path.

So when there is a list of property/value pairs the binding is created as

new Binding(){   Path="MyProperty"   ElementName="MyElement" } 

The second form is used for bindings like {Binding MyProperty, ...}. In this case the binding is created as

new Binding("MyProperty"){   ElementName = "MyElement",   ... } 

It's always correct (and possibly more correct) to specify Path=, but you can get away without it.