Chapter Summary

Nearly every Windows application deals with data in some form. Data is often contained in a database, but it may also be in a simple array, an array of objects, or many other forms. This data is known as the data model of the application.

Data binding gives you a way to connect data that is stored in the data model with the user interface of an application. In this chapter, you learned about many of the tools that Visual C# .NET provides for data binding, including both simple and complex data binding, the Data Form Wizard, and Server Explorer.

Data binding in the .NET Framework is much more flexible than it was in any previous development environment. You can bind any class that implements IList, IBindingList, or ITypedList to the user interface. And any property of a user interface control can potentially be bound to data.

You also learned some programmatic approaches to data, including the use of the BindingContext and CurrencyManager classes and the creation of SQL Server views to filter or transform data. Trapping events from the CurrencyManager class provides additional flexibility for handling complex binding scenarios.