binding an image source in XAML

Question

I am trying to bind an image source to my XAML through c#

this works

<Image Source="images/man.jpg"></Image>

this does not work

<Image Source="images/{Binding imagesource}"></Image>

where imagesource is a string variable in the c# file of this xaml and is being set equal to "man.jpg"

Answer 1

imagesource needs to be an actual Image object, not a string.

Here is a method that will create a new Image object given a path:

public BitmapImage Load(string path)
{
    var uri = new Uri(path);
    return new BitmapImage(uri);
}

Answer 2

You can't stick a binding mid-way through the value like that. It's either a binding, or it's not. Assuming imagesource is publicly accessible via your DataContext, you could do this:

<Image Source="{Binding imagesource}"/>

However, if it's been set to "man.jpg" then it won't find the image. Either set imagesource to the full path ("images/man.jpg") or use a converter:

<Image Source="{Binding imagesource, Converter={StaticResource RelativePathConverter}}"/>

The converter would prepend "images/" onto its value. However, it may be necessary for the converter to return an ImageSource rather than a string.

HTH,
Kent