What is difference between “ * ” and “Auto” in Silverlight Grid Layout Definitions

Question

trying to understand the following:

Answer 1

Auto will make the each column size so it can fit whatever is contained in it.

* will use up the maximum amount of available space. It is best to use when you have a "left over" column that you want to just resize to whatever is left over.

Example Grid of width undefined.

Scenario 1:

Column 1  | Column 2  | Column 3
----------------------------------
100 Width | Auto      | 200 Width

On this case column 2 could be anything between 1 and whatever the content that is put in it requires and the max space available for the grid's width. If column 2 was changed to * and a width defined on the grid as a whole it would to fill in the left over space to achieve the grid's width. If you had two columns set as *, and a grid width defined, then they would compete for the left over space and split it.

Usually I use * for only one column maximum (although this is not a rule) if I have a control that is set to a dynamic size so that the column will fill in whatever space is left over by the other columns. It's great if you want specific sized columns for a dynamically sized control and want certain columns to stay fixed and define one column to expand to fill in the rest of the control. Auto would not do this with empty or low content columns that would not actually fill the left over space.

Scenario 2 (col 3 contains content that is 100 width and grid has a total width of 800):

Column 1  | Column 2  | Column 3  | Column 4
--------------------------------------------
100 Width | 200 Width | Auto      | *

Column 3 would then only size to 100 width. Column 4 would size to 400 width to fill in the left over space.