How can I get a TextBlock to literally say "{Binding}"?

Question

In XAML, if you insert

<TextBlock Text="Hello World" />

You will see the words "Hello World".

If you insert

<TextBlock Text="{Binding}" />

it will trigger the data binding functionality. But what if I really wanted the display text to be "{Binding}"?"

Are there the equivalent of escape characters in XAML strings?

Or is my only solution to do this:

<TextBlock>Binding</TextBlock>

Just curious.

Answer 1

You can escape the entire string with "{}":

<TextBlock Text="{}{Binding}"/>

Or individual curly braces can be escaped with a backslash:

<TextBlock Text="{Binding Foo,StringFormat='Hello \{0\}'}" />

Answer 2

Try this:

<TextBlock Text="&#123;Binding&#125;" />

And unescape it when you read the value.

Answer 3

You need to escape the { and } characters, so you'd end up with <TextBlock Text="\{Binding\}" />

Answer 4

Escaping with '{}' as per Matt's response is the way to go, but for the sake of completeness you can also use a CDATA section:

<TextBlock>
    <TextBlock.Text>
        <![CDATA[{Binding}]]>
    </TextBlock.Text>
</TextBlock>

A CDATA section is more useful for multiline text though.

HTH, Kent