What is a dependency property?

by

The only explanation I found helpful and well written is this one: http://www.wpftutorial.net/dependencyproperties.html

Basically, DependencyProperties differ from regular properties in that they’re not just setters / getters for fields in the class, but they retrieve their actual values dynamically during runtime. The SetValue() method of DPs is pretty straightforward and sets the local value of the property to the value you gave it. However, when you try to GetValue() from a DependencyProperty, it will first look for a local value, if none is present (which is viable in DependencyProperties unlike regular properties) it will continue up the logical UI tree until it will find such value. If the framework has reached the top of the tree without finding any local values, it will then use a predefined default value as the property’s value.

This method allows DependencyProperties to consume less memory than regular properties since only values that were explicitly set by the user will be stored locally.

And, as mentioned above, DependencyProperties also allow us to bind to them in the XAML code and set triggers on them, which on regular properties is not allowed.

I hope I’ve managed to clear some of the vagueness 🙂

More Related Contents:

  1. What’s the difference between a dependency property and an attached property in WPF?
  2. When to use Windows Workflow Foundation? [closed]
  3. How do You Create a Read-Only Dependency Property?
  4. ControlTemplate for existing controls in WPF
  5. How do you configure an OpenFileDialog to select folders?
  6. What is the point of DBNull?
  7. Listen to changes of dependency property
  8. Find Unused Resources in a .NET Solution
  9. DateTime.Now vs. DateTime.UtcNow
  10. How to force a Solution file (SLN) to be opened in Visual Studio 2013?
  11. What problem does IStructuralEquatable and IStructuralComparable solve?
  12. Custom app.config Config Section Handler
  13. Cannot send a content-body with this verb-type
  14. How to clear the cache of HttpWebRequest
  15. Referencing Google’s V8 engine from a .NET app
  16. Error message “Unable to install or run the application. The application requires stdole Version 7.0.3300.0 in the GAC”
  17. Windows 7 .net Excel .SaveAs() Error Exception from HRESULT: 0x800A03EC
  18. ASP.NET MVC 3 Model Binding Resources
  19. How can I get a ListView GridViewColumn to fill the remaining space in my grid?
  20. “The calling thread must be STA, because many UI components require this” error when creating a WPF pop-up Window in thread
  21. How to use Observable.FromEvent instead of FromEventPattern and avoid string literal event names
  22. Translate a column index into an Excel Column Name
  23. How to log MethodName when wrapping Log4net?
  24. Drag and drop a DLL to the GAC (“assembly”) in windows server 2008 .net 4.0
  25. How do you databind to a System.Windows.Forms.Treeview control?
  26. Get a list of groups that Azure AD user belongs to in claims
  27. How do I sync the SVN revision number with my ASP.NET web site?
  28. Can you install and run apps built on the .NET framework on a Mac?
  29. XmlSerializer startup HUGE performance loss on 64bit systems
  30. Prevent WebBrowser control from stealing focus?

Leave a Comment