Anybody have a good example how to deep clone a WPF object, preserving databindings?
The marked answer is the first part.
The second part is that you have to create an ExpressionConverter and inject it into the serialization process. Details for this are here:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/xamlwriterandbinding.aspx?fid=1428301&df=90&mpp=25&noise=3&sort=Position&view=Quick&select=2801571
How about:
public static T DeepClone<T>(T from)
{
using (MemoryStream s = new MemoryStream())
{
BinaryFormatter f = new BinaryFormatter();
f.Serialize(s, from);
s.Position = 0;
object clone = f.Deserialize(s);
return (T)clone;
}
}
Of course this deep clones any object, and it might not be the fastest solution in town, but it has the least maintenance... :)
The simplest way that I've done it is to use a XamlWriter to save the WPF object as a string. The Save method will serialize the object and all of its children in the logical tree. Now you can create a new object and load it with a XamlReader.
ex: Write the object to xaml (let's say the object was a Grid control):
string gridXaml = XamlWriter.Save(myGrid);
Load it into a new object:
StringReader stringReader = new StringReader(gridXaml);
XmlReader xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(stringReader);
Grid newGrid = (Grid)XamlReader.Load(xmlReader);