How do I bind a WPF DataGrid to a variable number of columns?

Question

My WPF application generates sets of data which may have a different number of columns each time. Included in the output is a description of each column that will be used t

Answer 1

You can create a usercontrol with the grid definition and define 'child' controls with varied column definitions in xaml. The parent needs a dependency property for columns and a method for loading the columns:

Parent:

---

public ObservableCollection gridColumns
{
  get
  {
    return (ObservableCollection)GetValue(ColumnsProperty);
  }
  set
  {
    SetValue(ColumnsProperty, value);
  }
}
public static readonly DependencyProperty ColumnsProperty =
  DependencyProperty.Register("gridColumns",
  typeof(ObservableCollection),
  typeof(parentControl),
  new PropertyMetadata(new ObservableCollection()));

public void LoadGrid()
{
  if (gridColumns.Count > 0)
    myGrid.Columns.Clear();

  foreach (DataGridColumn c in gridColumns)
  {
    myGrid.Columns.Add(c);
  }
}

Child Xaml:

---

---

And finally, the tricky part is finding where to call 'LoadGrid'.
I am struggling with this but got things to work by calling after InitalizeComponent in my window constructor (childGrid is x:name in window.xaml):

childGrid.deGrid.LoadGrid();

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