XAML Binding Enumerations

Supposed that we have these enumerations

Namespace AnimalsEnumerations

	''' <summary>
    ''' Type of animal
    ''' </summary>
    Public Enum Animals
        Cat
        Cow
        Monkey
    End Enum

End Namespace

And we want to bind it to a combobox. We have this combobox

<ComboBox Height="23" Width="auto" x:Name="cboDataBits" />

Now we want to bind the animals enumerations into the combo box. The idea is to put it into windows resource and bind it to the combobox as a static resource.

First of all, let’s give the enumerations a namespace, supposed we call it Animals

Then, we have to include the enumerations class namespace

xmlns:softcore="clr-namespace:AnimalEnumerations;assembly=AnimalsProject"

Put the window resources tag

<Window.Resources>
</Window.Resources>

Put the enumerations inside as ObjectDataProvider

<Window.Resources>

	    <!-- animal type -->
    	<ObjectDataProvider x:Key="animalDS" 
    	d:IsDataSource="True" MethodName="GetSortedEnumNames" 
    	ObjectType="{x:Type utility:GetEnumValues}">
        	<ObjectDataProvider.MethodParameters>
            	<x:Type TypeName="softcore:AnimalsEnumerations"/>
        	</ObjectDataProvider.MethodParameters>
    	</ObjectDataProvider>

</Window.Resources>

You might realized that there are some weird functions we’re calling there, GetSortedEnumNames and GetEnumValues. We will get it to get the enum values and sorted it before binding the values to the combo box

Namespace Utility

	Public Class GetEnumValues

	        ''' <summary>
	        ''' Change enum to list of strings
	        ''' </summary>
	        Public Function GetSortedEnumNames(ByVal t As Type) As String()

	            'first do a sanity check, make sure the developer 
	            'is passing us an enum
	            If t.BaseType.FullName = "System.Enum" Then
	                Dim strOut() As String = [Enum].GetNames(t)
	                Array.Sort(strOut)
	                Return strOut
	            Else
	                Throw New ArgumentException("Must be an enum", "t")
	            End If
	        End Function

	        ''' <summary>
	        ''' Change enum to list of strings
	        ''' </summary>
	        Public Function GetSortedEnumValues(ByVal t As Type) As List(Of Integer)
	            Dim strOut As New List(Of Integer)
	            'first do a sanity check, make sure the developer 
	            'is passing us an enum
	            If t.BaseType.FullName = "System.Enum" Then
	                For Each i As Integer In [Enum].GetValues(t)
	                    strOut.Add(i)
	                Next
	                Return strOut
	            Else
	                Throw New ArgumentException("Must be an enum", "t")
	            End If
	        End Function

	        Public Sub New()

	        End Sub

	    End Class

End Namespace

Don’t forgot to add the namespace to the XAML file

xmlns:softcore="clr-namespace:Utility;assembly=AnimalsProject"                             

To use it on the combobox, we’ll simply add it into the items source binding

<ComboBox Height="23" Width="auto" x:Name="cboDataBits" 
	ItemsSource="{Binding Mode=OneWay, Source={StaticResource dataBitsDS}}" />