How to get WPF DataGrid to use member variables of classes in DataGridTextColumn?

Question

I am trying to bind a DataGrid.ItemSource to a ObservableCollection<SearchObject> . SearchObject is a custom class which has some public member variables (one is named "parameters"). Parameters is a custom class and has a public member variable (of type string) named "query". How can I get the "query" string to show up in the datagrid.

I tried Binding="{Binding ElementName=parameters, Path=query}" within a DataGridTextColumn , but it didn't seem to work. I imagined this would reference the parameters object and then look for its query member variable, but this didn't seem to work.

Any ideas? Here is my XAML:

<DataGrid HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Name="watchListDataGrid"
     VerticalAlignment="Stretch" IsReadOnly="True" 
     AlternatingRowBackground="#FFE4F0FC" 
     HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled" 
     SelectionChanged="watchListDataGrid_SelectionChanged"
     CanUserReorderColumns="False" 
     CanUserSortColumns="False"
     AutoGenerateColumns="False" KeyUp="watchListDataGrid_KeyUp">
<DataGrid.ContextMenu>
    <ContextMenu >
        <MenuItem Header="Remove" Click="MenuRemoveWatchListItem_Click"  />
    </ContextMenu>
</DataGrid.ContextMenu>
<DataGrid.Columns>
    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Query" Width="*" 
       Binding="{Binding ElementName=parameters, Path=query}" />
</DataGrid.Columns>

Answer 1

Assuming your DataGrid's ItemsSource is bound to something like:

<DataGrid ItemsSource={Binding Path=parameters}>

The DataGridTextColumn's Binding should be:

<DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=query}" />

You use ElementName to reference another element within your XAML. For example, if you wanted to bind the text of a TextBlock to the text of a TextBox:

<TextBox Name="myTextBox" />
<TextBlock Text={Binding Path=Text, ElementName=myTextBox} />

Answer 2

I was able to resolve the problem. Yazan, your suggestion to use this code DID work:

 <DataGridTextColumn Binding="{Binding Path=query}" />

However, I was missing { get; set; } for the SearchObject's "parameters" member variable. When I added these, it all worked fine:

public class SearchObject : ISerializable
{
    public SearchParameters parameters { get; set; }

Thanks again for your help!