Error while setting a Datacontext for a UserControl in WPF

Question

I have usercontrol where I am trying to set the context as below

<UserControl.DataContext>
    <Binding ElementName="dataGrid" Path="MyViewModel">

    </Binding>
</UserControl.DataContext>

Here dataGrid is a child DataGrid control and MyViewModel is my ViewModel class. Currently its giving following error while runtime:

Cannot find source for binding with reference 'ElementName=dataGrid'. BindingExpression:Path=MyViewModel; DataItem=null; target element is 'UserControl1' (Name=''); target property is 'DataContext' (type 'Object')

Can anyone please help what is the problem here?

Answer 1

Is MyViewModel set on the DataContext of dataGrid?

If so change MyViewModel in Path to DataContext and you are good to go... If not, set your MyViewModel class to DataContext and remove the ElementName from the Binding, and it should work as well ;)

Answer 2

This binding tries to access dataGrid.MyViewModel, but MyViewModel is not a property of the DataGrid... You should do something like that instead :

<Binding ElementName="dataGrid" Path="DataContext.MyViewModel">

Answer 3

The issue is most likely due to Name Scoping constraints. ElementName Bindings only work properly within defined boundaries. This specific error is saying that it can't find the named element "dataGrid". Can you show more of the surrounding XAML?