WPF Binding to method of a collection element

Question

Im searching for the best practice (or any working solution) for the following scenario:

I have an Employee class:

public class Employee
{
    public string DisplayName
    { get; set; }

    // It is important that this method has a parameter
    public string GetSomething(string param)
    { return param + DisplayName; }
}

I have a List<Employee> type object which is bound to a ComboBox in XAML.

The DisplayName for each employee is correctly showing in the ComboBox, but how can I show the return value of the GetSomething method with an exact parameter for all employees for each employee instead of the DisplayName?

Binding to a method is OK, but how can I bind to multiple instances (for each employee object in the list)? With the ObjectDataProvider I can only bind to one exact instance (or a class), not each employee object of the employee list.

Answer 1

Save yourself some trouble: use a view model and create a separate property that returns the value you want for each employee. To give a more detailed answer, I need to know where the parameter comes from.

HTH, Kent

Answer 2

I agree with @Kent Boogaart that using a view model is definitely the desired way to go (as well as a best practice).

Another possibility that I have used before (before I knew more about Model-View-ViewModel) is to use a BindingConverter. Bind either to your Employee class or to the DisplayName property and pass in the parameter as the parameter to the binding converter.