The System.Web.UI.WebControls.HierarchicalDataBoundControl class is the base class used for ASP.NET controls that retrieve data from an ASP.NET hierarchical data source control and bind user-interface elements of the control to that data for display. The System.Web.UI.WebControls.TreeView and System.Web.UI.WebControls.Menu classes derive from System.Web.UI.WebControls.HierarchicalDataBoundControl.

Page developers do not use the System.Web.UI.WebControls.HierarchicalDataBoundControl class directly; instead, they use controls that derive from this class.

Controls developers extend this class to create data-bound controls that work with classes that implement the System.Web.UI.IHierarchicalDataSource interface and classes that derive from the System.Web.UI.HierarchicalDataSourceControl and System.Web.UI.HierarchicalDataSourceView classes. When deriving a class from the System.Web.UI.WebControls.HierarchicalDataBoundControl class, override the HierarchicalDataBoundControl.PerformDataBinding method to bind the user-interface elements of your control to data retrieved by the HierarchicalDataBoundControl.GetData(string) method. In most cases, the HierarchicalDataBoundControl.PerformDataBinding method is the only method you will override in your derived class.

For ASP.NET 2.0 data-bound controls, the HierarchicalDataBoundControl.PerformSelect method is the equivalent of the BaseDataBoundControl.DataBind method, and is called to bind data at run time. The HierarchicalDataBoundControl.PerformSelect method calls the HierarchicalDataBoundControl.GetData(string) and HierarchicalDataBoundControl.PerformDataBinding methods.