#101 – What Visual Studio Does with Your XAML

Given that XAML is just a declarative representation of the objects used by your WPF application, the objects need to be instantiated at runtime.

Here’s the process (e.g. for MainWindow.xaml):

• While you work in designer, VS2010 automatically generates partial class (e.g. MainWindow.g.i.cs), including:
  • Reference variables for named elements in XAML  (e.g. myButton)
  • Code to instantiate XAML objects at runtime
• When you build the project
  • All code (yours and VS2010-generated) is compiled
  • XAML is compiled into BAML (binary), stored in .baml file
  • All BAML files combined into single .g.resources file (e.g. MyApp.g.resources)
  • Executable is built, embedding the .g.resources file as a resource
• At runtime
  • Window constructor calls InitializeComponent
  • InitializeComponent (in generated code) calls Application.LoadComponent, passing URI identifying XAML
  • LoadComponent loads binary XAML from embedded resource, creates all objects
  • As BAML is read, window’s IComponentConnector.Connect method is called, which hooks up local object references to the created objects and attaches event handlers