Binding to current source ("{Binding .}") in WinRT - winrt-xaml

Question

In WPF, if I want to reference the whole object (not a specific property) in a binding, I can write any of the following:
{Binding Path=.}
{Binding .}
{Binding}
Like so:
<ItemsControl ItemsSource="{Binding Widgets}">
<ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<controls:WidgetControl Widget="{Binding}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
</ItemsControl>
However in WinRT I have not been able to get this to work:
<GridView ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource Widgets}}">
<GridView.ItemTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<controls:WidgetControl Widget="{Binding}"/>
</DataTemplate>
</GridView.ItemTemplate>
</GridView>
It fails with a very vague exception:
The text associated with this error code could not be found.
Failed to assign to property 'XX.WidgetControl.Widget'. [Line: XX Position: XX]
The ItemsSource binding works because the DataContext of each controls:WidgetControl gets set to a Widget. And I know the obvious answer to this is just to wait for the DataContext to be set and cast that to a Widget inside my widget control. But I'm asking on principle: Why doesn't self-binding work in WinRT... or is there a notation to make it work?

Answer 1

So it turns out {Binding} works just great. I had wrongly set the DataContext in my WidgetControl, causing the binding to fail and leading me to believe the WinRT binding mechanism was at fault.
To be clear, {Binding .} still doesn't work like it does in WPF as best as I can tell. It interprets the dot as a literal property name instead of a reference to self:
Error: BindingExpression path error: '.' property not found on 'Widget'. BindingExpression: Path='.' DataItem='Widget'
But my actual problem was trying to change the DataContext at the root level of my WidgetControl, causing any external bindings to fail. Because I defined my control as <UserControl x:Name='controlRoot' DataContext="{Binding ElementName=controlRoot}, the binding in <controls:WidgetControl Widget="{Binding}"/> was referencing the WidgetControl itself and not the Widget I was trying to pass in. And the "failed to assign to property" exception was thrown by a property changed handler that was expecting a Widget, not a WidgetControl.
So you can absolutely use {Binding} to reference the DataContext of the thing the binding is on, just don't try to set the path to ".".