[wpf] WPF Datagrid set selected row

It's a little trickier to do what you're trying to do than I'd prefer, but that's because you don't really directly bind a DataGrid to a DataTable.

When you bind DataGrid.ItemsSource to a DataTable, you're really binding it to the default DataView, not to the table itself. This is why, for instance, you don't have to do anything to make a DataGrid sort rows when you click on a column header - that functionality's baked into DataView, and DataGrid knows how to access it (through the IBindingList interface).

The DataView implements IEnumerable<DataRowView> (more or less), and the DataGrid fills its items by iterating over this. This means that when you've bound DataGrid.ItemsSource to a DataTable, its SelectedItem property will be a DataRowView, not a DataRow.

If you know all this, it's pretty straightforward to build a wrapper class that lets you expose properties that you can bind to. There are three key properties:

• Table, the DataTable,
• Row, a two-way bindable property of type DataRowView, and
• SearchText, a string property that, when it's set, will find the first matching DataRowView in the table's default view, set the Row property, and raise PropertyChanged.

It looks like this:

public class DataTableWrapper : INotifyPropertyChanged
{
    private DataRowView _Row;

    private string _SearchText;

    public DataTableWrapper()
    {
        // using a parameterless constructor lets you create it directly in XAML
        DataTable t = new DataTable();
        t.Columns.Add("id", typeof (int));
        t.Columns.Add("text", typeof (string));

        // let's acquire some sample data
        t.Rows.Add(new object[] { 1, "Tower"});
        t.Rows.Add(new object[] { 2, "Luxor" });
        t.Rows.Add(new object[] { 3, "American" });
        t.Rows.Add(new object[] { 4, "Festival" });
        t.Rows.Add(new object[] { 5, "Worldwide" });
        t.Rows.Add(new object[] { 6, "Continental" });
        t.Rows.Add(new object[] { 7, "Imperial" });

        Table = t;

    }

    // you should have this defined as a code snippet if you work with WPF
    private void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
    {
        PropertyChangedEventHandler h = PropertyChanged;
        if (h != null)
        {
            h(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
        }
    }

    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

    // SelectedItem gets bound to this two-way
    public DataRowView Row
    {
        get { return _Row; }
        set
        {
            if (_Row != value)
            {
                _Row = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("Row");
            }
        }
    }

    // the search TextBox is bound two-way to this
    public string SearchText
    {
        get { return _SearchText; }
        set
        {
            if (_SearchText != value)
            {
                _SearchText = value;
                Row = Table.DefaultView.OfType<DataRowView>()
                    .Where(x => x.Row.Field<string>("text").Contains(_SearchText))
                    .FirstOrDefault();
            }
        }
    }

    public DataTable Table { get; private set; }
}

And here's XAML that uses it:

<Window x:Class="DataGridSelectionDemo.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
        xmlns:dg="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Windows.Controls;assembly=WPFToolkit"
        xmlns:DataGridSelectionDemo="clr-namespace:DataGridSelectionDemo" 
        Title="DataGrid selection demo" 
        Height="350" 
        Width="525">
    <Window.DataContext>
        <DataGridSelectionDemo:DataTableWrapper />
    </Window.DataContext>
    <DockPanel>
        <Grid DockPanel.Dock="Top">
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
                <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
                <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
            </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <Label>Text</Label>
            <TextBox Grid.Column="1" 
                     Text="{Binding SearchText, Mode=TwoWay}" />
        </Grid>
        <dg:DataGrid DockPanel.Dock="Top"
                     ItemsSource="{Binding Table}"
                     SelectedItem="{Binding Row, Mode=TwoWay}" />
    </DockPanel>
</Window>