XML Binding

The current version of Silverlight does not support direct XML binding but LINQ to XML can be used to retrieve the necessary data. The following example loads a collection of dates from an xml file and assigns them as the selected dates of a calendar.

The DataSource.xml file has the following content:

<ChosenDates> 
    <Date>08/21/2010</Date> 
    <Date>08/04/2010</Date> 
    <Date>08/01/2010</Date> 
    <Date>08/26/2010</Date> 
    <Date>08/02/2010</Date> 
    <Date>08/03/2010</Date> 
    <Date>08/19/2010</Date> 
    <Date>08/10/2010</Date> 
</ChosenDates> 

The following code snippet loads the file and extracts the Date nodes out of it, then assigns the respective dates as selection:

// Make sure that more than one date can be selected: 
calendar.SelectionMode = SelectionMode.Extended; 
// Load the xml document and get the culture with wich the dates were serialized: 
XDocument xmlSource = XDocument.Load("DataSource.xml"); 
CultureInfo usCulture = new CultureInfo("En-US"); 
// Add Get all the dates in the xml document and add them as selected dates: 
foreach (var dateNode in xmlSource.Descendants("Date")) 
{ 
    calendar.SelectedDates.Add(DateTime.Parse(dateNode.Value, usCulture.DateTimeFormat)); 
} 
// Set the display date to the forst selected date, so that the selection is visible. 
calendar.DisplayDate = (DateTime)calendar.SelectedDates[0];