Binding Standard Controls

As discussed in the In Depth section of this chapter, there are two kinds of data binding in Web forms—simple and complex. To use simple binding, you use the (DataBindings) property of a control; with complex data binding, you use the DataSource, DataMember, DataKeyField, DataTextField, DataTextFormat String, and DataValue properties (not all complex-bound controls will support all these properties). For more on these topics, see the In Depth section of this chapter.

We saw an example in the In Depth section—the WebDataBinding example on the CD-ROM—which bound controls using both simple and complex data binding. You can see this example at work in Figure 23.5, with simple-bound controls on the left, and complex-bound controls on the right. The actual data binding is accomplished with the DataBinder object. For a discussion of this example, see the In Depth section of this chapter.