Applied ASP.NET 4 in Context

C H A P T E R  19

Using Web Forms Data Binding

Data binding is the process of populating the content of a Web Forms control with the data contained in a data source. A Web Forms control that can be used in this way is known as a data-bound control, and the most useful way to explain how the data-bound controls work is to break them into three categories: basic, navigation, and rich data controls.

As you'll learn in this chapter, performing data binding with the basic and navigation controls is pretty straightforward. Using the rich data controls is much more complex. So, before we tackle them in the next chapter, we are going to spend some time looking behind the scenes to see the techniques that the data controls use. The more you understand ...