The System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataBoundControl class is the base class used for ASP.NET controls that retrieve tabular or list-style data from an ASP.NET data source control and bind user-interface (UI) elements of the control to that data for display. Composite data-bound controls such as System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridView, System.Web.UI.WebControls.DetailsView, and System.Web.UI.WebControls.FormView; list-style data-bound controls such as System.Web.UI.WebControls.BulletedList and System.Web.UI.WebControls.CheckBoxList; and other controls such as System.Web.UI.WebControls.AdRotator derive from System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataBoundControl.

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

Control developers extend this class to create data-bound controls that work with classes that implement the System.Web.UI.IDataSource interface and classes that derive from the System.Web.UI.DataSourceControl and System.Web.UI.DataSourceView classes. When deriving a class from the System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataBoundControl class, override the DataBoundControl.PerformDataBinding(IEnumerable) method to bind the UI elements of your control to data retrieved by the DataBoundControl.GetData method. In most cases, the DataBoundControl.PerformDataBinding(IEnumerable) method is the only method you will override in your derived class.

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