Access parent DataContext from DataTemplate

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I had problems with the relative source in Silverlight. After searching and reading I did not find a suitable solution without using some additional Binding library. But, here is another approach for gaining access to the parent DataContext by directly referencing an element of which you know the data context. It uses Binding ElementName and works quite well, as long as you respect your own naming and don’t have heavy reuse of templates/styles across components:

<ItemsControl x:Name="level1Lister" ItemsSource={Binding MyLevel1List}>
  <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
      <Button Content={Binding MyLevel2Property}
              Command={Binding ElementName=level1Lister,
                       Path=DataContext.MyLevel1Command}
              CommandParameter={Binding MyLevel2Property}>
      </Button>
    <DataTemplate>
  <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>

This also works if you put the button into Style/Template:

<Border.Resources>
  <Style x:Key="buttonStyle" TargetType="Button">
    <Setter Property="Template">
      <Setter.Value>
        <ControlTemplate TargetType="Button">
          <Button Command={Binding ElementName=level1Lister,
                                   Path=DataContext.MyLevel1Command}
                  CommandParameter={Binding MyLevel2Property}>
               <ContentPresenter/>
          </Button>
        </ControlTemplate>
      </Setter.Value>
    </Setter>
  </Style>
</Border.Resources>

<ItemsControl x:Name="level1Lister" ItemsSource={Binding MyLevel1List}>
  <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
      <Button Content="{Binding MyLevel2Property}" 
              Style="{StaticResource buttonStyle}"/>
    <DataTemplate>
  <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>

At first I thought that the x:Names of parent elements are not accessible from within a templated item, but since I found no better solution, I just tried, and it works fine.

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