DataBinding Part 1

Binding to a list control is one of the most common task. I think most of the .NET list controls has a DataSource property in which accepts reference to any datasource(IList).

In our example I used MSACCESS for our backend database for simplicity.
This will be our example data for the rest of the databinding samples!

Sample screenshot of the application!

App.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
 <connectionStrings>
  <add providerName="System.Data.OleDb" 
    name="MyConnectionString" 
    connectionString=
    "Provider= Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=|DataDirectory|\SampleDB.accdb;User Id=admin;Password=;"/>
 </connectionStrings>
</configuration>

To use ConfigurationManager, please add System.Configuration to your references.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.OleDb;
using System.Configuration;

namespace DataBinding
{
    public class clsGetData
    {
        public DataTable getProducts()
        {
            DataSet ds = new DataSet();

            using(OleDbConnection cn = new OleDbConnection 
                (ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyConnectionString"].ConnectionString))
            {
                using (OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand("SELECT * FROM tblSampleProducts", cn))
                {
                    using (OleDbDataAdapter adptr = new OleDbDataAdapter(cmd))
                    {
                        adptr.Fill(ds, "tblProducts");
                    }
                }
            }

            return ds.Tables["tblProducts"];
        }
    }
}

clsInstance.cs < i created this class for single instance of clsGetData

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;

namespace DataBinding
{
    public class clsInstance
    {
        private static readonly clsGetData getData = new clsGetData();

        public static clsGetData Products
        { 
            get { return getData; }
        }
    }
}

Form1.cs

namespace DataBinding
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnBind_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.lstProducts.DataSource = clsInstance.Products.getProducts();
            this.lstProducts.ValueMember = "ProductID";
            this.lstProducts.DisplayMember = "ProductName";
        }

        private void btnBindDataView_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            DataTable dt = clsInstance.Products.getProducts();
            
            dt.DefaultView.RowFilter = "ProductPrice < 1000";

            this.lstProducts.DataSource = dt;
            this.lstProducts.ValueMember = "ProductID";
            this.lstProducts.DisplayMember = "ProductName";
        }
    }
}