Bind to a method in WPF?

Another approach that might work for you is to create a custom IValueConverter that takes a method name as a parameter, so that it would be used like this:

ItemsSource="{Binding 
    Converter={StaticResource MethodToValueConverter},
    ConverterParameter='GetChildren'}"

This converter would find and invoke the method using reflection. This requires the method to not have any arguments.

Here's an example of such a converter's source:

public sealed class MethodToValueConverter : IValueConverter
{
    public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        var methodName = parameter as string;
        if (value==null || methodName==null)
            return value;
        var methodInfo = value.GetType().GetMethod(methodName, new Type[0]);
        if (methodInfo==null)
            return value;
        return methodInfo.Invoke(value, new object[0]);
    }

    public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
    {
        throw new NotSupportedException("MethodToValueConverter can only be used for one way conversion.");
    }
}

And a corresponding unit test:

[Test]
public void Convert()
{
    var converter = new MethodToValueConverter();
    Assert.AreEqual("1234", converter.Convert(1234, typeof(string), "ToString", null));
    Assert.AreEqual("ABCD", converter.Convert(" ABCD ", typeof(string), "Trim", null));

    Assert.IsNull(converter.Convert(null, typeof(string), "ToString", null));

    Assert.AreEqual("Pineapple", converter.Convert("Pineapple", typeof(string), "InvalidMethodName", null));
}

Note that this converter does not enforce the targetType parameter.

Not sure how well it will work in your scenario, but you can use the MethodName property on ObjectDataProvider to have it call a specific method (with specific parameters of you MethodParameters property) to retrieve its data.

Here's a snippet taken directly from the MSDN page:

<Window.Resources>
    <ObjectDataProvider ObjectType="{x:Type local:TemperatureScale}"
        MethodName="ConvertTemp" x:Key="convertTemp">
        <ObjectDataProvider.MethodParameters>
            <system:Double>0</system:Double>
            <local:TempType>Celsius</local:TempType>
        </ObjectDataProvider.MethodParameters>
    </ObjectDataProvider>
</Window.Resources>

So that's an ObjectDataProvider that's calling a ConvertTemp method on an instance of a TemperatureScale class, passing two parameters (0 and TempType.Celsius).

Do you have to bind to the method?

Can you bind to a property who's getter is the method?

public ObservableCollection<ChildObject> Children
{
   get
   {
      return GetChildren();
   }
}