Data Binding Using VB2005 vb.

net programming

Binding Data to WinForms Controls in VB.NET 2005

Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0 support binding to traditional data sources and custom objects. This
technology is based on the capabilities of the CodeDOM, typed DataSets, and changes to Forms
designers. Collectively, these changes make it possible to define a data source, generate a Windows
Form with controls, run the form, and edit the data without writing a single line of code. If the data
source is based on a known provider like the SQL provider, the code to populate the data set and
write changes is generated automatically. If you use a custom data source, you will have to write a
little code to populate the custom objects and a little more code to write changes back to the data
source.

This article walks you through the data source's capabilities and demonstrates how the binding source
and binding navigator controls are used to provide navigation and binding to WinForms controls. The
end of the article demonstrates how you can use reflection to generate controls on the fly and use
data bindings programmatically to bind data objects to controls.

Generating a Form Using a Data Source

Generally, Developer.com doesn't publish articles about wizards because readers are capable enough
to walk through the wizards and the wizards are easy enough to follow correctly. However, .NET 2.0 is
still new, so you may not know about its wizard-based features, which this article discusses. And, it
wraps up with some cool data binding and reflection code that isn't wizard-based.

To create a data source from a SQL Server physical file and generate a data bound form that is a
complete and functional application, take the following steps:

1. Open Visual Studio 2005.

2. Create a new Windows Forms project.
3. Select Data|Add New Data Source.
4. In the first step of the wizard (entitled Choose a data source type, see Figure 1), select
Database.

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Data Binding Using VB2005 vb.net programming

1. Click Next.
2. In step 2—choose your data connection—click on New Connection (see Figure 2).

1. Figure 2: Click New Connection to Create a Connection to the Data Source

2. In the Change Data Source dialog, select the Microsoft SQL Server Database File (see Figure
3).
3. Figure 2: Click New Connection to Create a Connection to the Data Source
4. In the Change Data Source dialog, select the Microsoft SQL Server Database File (see Figure
3).
5. Figure 3: Select the Microsoft SQL Server Database File to Connect Directly to a SQL Server
Database Store
6. Click OK.
7. Browse to your copy of the SQL Server instance of the Northwind database file. (The file will
have an .MDF extension, and you can use Windows Explorer to help you find the file. See
Figure 4.)

1. Figure 4: Browse to
the Physical Data
File, Something Like
Northwnd.mdf
2. To wrap up, choose
the database objects
(see Figure 5). For
the example, select
all of the database
objects.

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Data Binding Using VB2005 vb.net programming

1. Figure 5: Choose All of the Database Objects for the Example

2. Click Finish to generate the data source.

What to do?

The designer did a lot of work when you clicked Finish; it created a very large custom-typed DataSet.
(This DataSet contains about 23,000 lines of code, because you selected the entire Northwind
database.) This DataSet has code that makes it very easy to initialize, bind, modify, and store
changes. Additionally, the designer added a data source to the Data Sources explorer (see Figure 6).
From this data source, you can easily create as many bound forms you want without a stitch of code.

Creating the Data Bound Form

By default, the Data Sources explorer elements are set to generate a DataGridView. Simply click on
the Customers table (see Figure 6), drag it to a Windows Form, and you have a running application.
To generate a detailed view with individual controls (see Figure 7), take the following steps:

1. Make sure you've selected a Form and the Form is in Designer mode, not code mode. (Make
sure you see the Form, not the Form's code.)
2. Click the drop-down list for the Customers table and select Details.
3. Drag and drop the Customers table from the Data Sources explorer to a Form.
4. Press F5.

Step 3 added controls to the form, generated code to populate the Customers data table in the
Form_Load event, and bound the controls to a binding source and binding navigator. These controls
work together to manage the DataSet and track changes.

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Data Binding Using VB2005 vb.net programming

Figure 7: The Form Generated by the Data Sources Explorer and Customers Table Set

What Next?

When you selected Details from the Customers table, you told the designer that you want to generate
a details-oriented form with a pair of controls for each column. When you dragged and dropped the
Customers table to the form, the designer added the Labels and TextBoxes, a DataSet component, a
TableAdapter, a BindingSource, and a BindingNavigator. The BindingNavigator (shown at the top of
Figure 7) is used to navigate through the DataSet and it provides controls for managing rows and
saving changes. The BindingNavigator talks to the BindingSource, and the BindingSource is data-
aware because it has a reference to the DataSet. The TableAdapter is a custom, generated control
that is analogous to a DataAdapter but is not derived from the SqlDataAdapter.

All of these components, controls, and code are added or generated for you by the designer. The
heavy lifting occurs in the custom DataSet. The Form itself has code for binding columns to controls,
handling the initialization, and updating the database from the form. This code is shown in Listing 1.

Listing 1: Some Lightweight Code Generated by the Designer

Public Class Form1

Private Sub bindingNavigatorSaveItem_Click(ByVal sender As _
System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles _
bindingNavigatorSaveItem.Click
If Me.Validate Then
Me.CustomersBindingSource.EndEdit()
Me.CustomersTableAdapter.Update(Me.NorthwndDataSet.Customers)
Else
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(Me, "Validation _
errors occurred.", _
"Save", System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxButtons.OK, _
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBoxIcon.Warning)
End If
End Sub

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Data Binding Using VB2005 vb.net programming

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, _

ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
' TODO: This line of code loads data into the
' NorthwndDataSet.Customers table. You can move,
' or remove it, as needed.
Me.CustomersTableAdapter.Fill(Me.NorthwndDataSet.Customers)
End Sub
End Class

If you want to view the binding statements, open the *.designer.vb file. For example, if the Form is
named Form1.vb, Form1.Designer.vb will contain the code managed by the Forms designer. (Splitting
a class into multiple parts is supported by the Partial Classes technology, also new in .NET 2.0.) The
code in the last section demonstrates binding objects.

Finally, if you want to manage the dataset using menus or the equivalent of a custom navigator, you
can implement event handlers on the binding source component and remove the binding navigator
altogether.

Binding to Controls Programmatically

The previous section demonstrated how to create a data-bound form at design time. You can use the
same features the IDE uses to create a custom designer or generate forms dynamically at runtime
using reflection and data-binding statements. The Form in Figure 8 was generated from the code in
Listing 2. The data bindings statements are shown in bold font in the listing.

Figure 8: A Dynamically Generated Data Bound Form

Listing 2: Code for Dynamically Generating a Data-Bound Form

Imports System.Configuration
Imports System.Data
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.Reflection
Public Class Form2
Private Sub Form2_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, _
ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
Dim table As DataTable = Nothing
Dim connectionString As String = _
My.Settings.northwndConnectionString
Using connection As SqlConnection = _
New SqlConnection(connectionString)
connection.Open()
Dim command As SqlCommand = _
New SqlCommand("SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS", connection)
Dim adapter As SqlDataAdapter = New SqlDataAdapter(command)
table = New DataTable()
adapter.Fill(table)
End Using

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Data Binding Using VB2005 vb.net programming

GenerateForm(table)
End Sub
Private Sub GenerateForm(ByVal table As DataTable)
Dim label As Label
Dim textBox As TextBox
Dim I As Integer
For I = 0 To table.Columns.Count - 1
label = New Label()
label.Location = New Point(10, I * 22 + 10)
label.AutoSize = True
label.Text = table.Columns(I).ColumnName + ":"
Controls.Add(label)
textBox = New TextBox
textBox.Location = New Point(100, I * 22 + 10)
textBox.Width = 200
textBox.DataBindings.Add("Text", _
table, table.Columns(I).ColumnName)
Controls.Add(textBox)
Next
End Sub
End Class

All you need to do to bind a control to a property in something like a DataTable is specify the controls
property (Text), the origin of the data (table), and the property in the data source that defines the
property that contains the source of data (the column name).

All that remains to complete the sample generated form is to add some navigation controls, and the
dynamic form works as well as one that might have taken hours or days to create by hand.

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