Declaring Empty String in XAML

Shown below is a code snippet which does not work.

   1: <ListView xmlns:System="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib">

   2:     <ListView.ItemsSource>

   3:      <coll:ArrayList>

   4:           <System:String></System:String>

   5:           <System:Int32>34</System:Int32>

   6:     </coll:ArrayList>  

   7:     </ListView.ItemsSource>

   8:   </ListView>

One would notice the following error when the above XAML is parsed.

Cannot create object of type “System.String”. CreateInstance failed, which can be caused by not having a public default constructor for ‘System.String’.

The reason for this error is that the “System.String” class does not provide a default constructor and this disallows declaring empty string.

What’s the fix?

   1: <ListView xmlns:System="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib">

   2:     <ListView.ItemsSource>

   3:      <coll:ArrayList>

   4:             <!-- notice empty string via usage of x:Static -->

   5:           <x:Static Member="System:String.Empty" />          

   6:           <System:Int32>34</System:Int32>

   7:     </coll:ArrayList>  

   8:     </ListView.ItemsSource>

   9:   </ListView>

Hope this helps.