Data Binding ....... and how is used in .Net Application i.e, TierDeveloper?

[Ann Morris]

INTRODUCTION

One of the most powerful aspects of .NET and Windows Forms is data
binding. Data binding is the process of associating user interface
(UI) elements with a data source to generate a visual representation
of data. Two types of data binding are available for Windows Forms:
Simple Data Binding and Complex Data Binding.

Simple data binding allows you to bind one data element to a control.
In many situations you want to display only one record at a time e.g.,
customer's personal information. Textboxes and labels are such
controls that are used for this purpose and hence called simple
binding.

Complex data binding allows you to bind more than one data element to
a control. For example if you want to display number of orders placed
by a customer you would use controls like data grid controls, list
boxes.

The data binding capabilities of .NET are similar to ADO and the
Visual Basic controls. Visual Basic or Delphi users will find .NET
data binding more flexible and more transparent. It saves a lot of
time in both Windows Forms and ASP.NET applications.

How to Bind TierDeveloper DataSet to Data Grid Control

Assumptions

• You are using TierDeveloper's sample project "TDevStoreSQL.tier" and
you've defined a query method "GetAllCustomers" for the object
"Customers".
• You have generated the components and Windows Forms Application from
TierDeveloper.
• You have access to a database, such as Microsoft SQL Server™ or
Microsoft Access.

In order to bind Data Grid please follow these steps: -

1. Open the TierDeveloper generated project in VS.NET
2. Add and open a new Windows Form.
3. Select the ToolBox window and click on Windows Forms tab.
4. Drag DataGrid component and place it anywhere on the Windows Form.
5. Paste the following code in the Windows Form Load event.

[Visual Basic]
Private Sub CustomersForm_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e
As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

Dim cf As CustomersFactory = New CustomersFactory
DataGrid1.CaptionText = "Customers"
DataGrid1.DataSource = cf.GetAllCustomersDS()

End Sub

[C#]
Private void CustomersForm_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
CustomersFactory cf = New CustomersFactory();
DataGrid1.CaptionText = "Customers" ;
DataGrid1.DataSource = cf.GetAllCustomersDS();

}

6. The postfix DS shows that this method will return a DataSet object.
7. Run the application and you will see that the DataGrid is filled
with all the customers.

Note: You can also bind datagrid to customer collection to do this you
will just have to change the grid data source to the method that can
return collection.
DataGrid1.DataSource = cf.GetAllCustomers();