When Clearing an ObservableCollection, There are No Items in e.OldItems

Question

I have something here that is really catching me off guard.

I have an ObservableCollection of T that is filled with items. I also have an event handler attached to t

Answer 1

If your ObservableCollection is not getting clear, then you may try this below code. it may help you:

private TestEntities context; // This is your context

context.Refresh(System.Data.Objects.RefreshMode.StoreWins, context.UserTables); // to refresh the object context

Answer 2

I was just going through some of the charting code in the Silverlight and WPF toolkits and noticed that they also solved this problem (in a kind of similar way) ... and I thought I would go ahead and post their solution.

Basically, they also created a derived ObservableCollection and overrode ClearItems, calling Remove on each item being cleared.

Here is the code:

/// <summary>
/// An observable collection that cannot be reset.  When clear is called
/// items are removed individually, giving listeners the chance to detect
/// each remove event and perform operations such as unhooking event 
/// handlers.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">The type of item in the collection.</typeparam>
public class NoResetObservableCollection<T> : ObservableCollection<T>
{
    public NoResetObservableCollection()
    {
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Clears all items in the collection by removing them individually.
    /// </summary>
    protected override void ClearItems()
    {
        IList<T> items = new List<T>(this);
        foreach (T item in items)
        {
            Remove(item);
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

To keep it simple why don't you override the ClearItem method and do whatever you want there ie Detach the items from the event.

public class PeopleAttributeList : ObservableCollection<PeopleAttributeDto>,    {
{
  protected override void ClearItems()
  {
    Do what ever you want
    base.ClearItems();
  }

  rest of the code omitted
}

Simple, clean, and contain within the collection code.

Answer 4

I had the same issue, and this was my solution. It seems to work. Does anyone see any potential problems with this approach?

// overriden so that we can call GetInvocationList
public override event NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler CollectionChanged;

protected override void OnCollectionChanged(NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
    NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler collectionChanged = CollectionChanged;
    if (collectionChanged != null)
    {
        lock (collectionChanged)
        {
            foreach (NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler handler in collectionChanged.GetInvocationList())
            {
                try
                {
                    handler(this, e);
                }
                catch (NotSupportedException ex)
                {
                    // this will occur if this collection is used as an ItemsControl.ItemsSource
                    if (ex.Message == "Range actions are not supported.")
                    {
                        handler(this, new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Reset));
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        throw ex;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Here are some other useful methods in my class:

public void SetItems(IEnumerable<T> newItems)
{
    Items.Clear();
    foreach (T newItem in newItems)
    {
        Items.Add(newItem);
    }
    NotifyCollectionChanged(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Reset));
}

public void AddRange(IEnumerable<T> newItems)
{
    int index = Count;
    foreach (T item in newItems)
    {
        Items.Add(item);
    }
    NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e = new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Add, new List<T>(newItems), index);
    NotifyCollectionChanged(e);
}

public void RemoveRange(int startingIndex, int count)
{
    IList<T> oldItems = new List<T>();
    for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
    {
        oldItems.Add(Items[startingIndex]);
        Items.RemoveAt(startingIndex);
    }
    NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e = new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Remove, new List<T>(oldItems), startingIndex);
    NotifyCollectionChanged(e);
}

// this needs to be overridden to avoid raising a NotifyCollectionChangedEvent with NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Reset, which our other lists don't support
new public void Clear()
{
    RemoveRange(0, Count);
}

public void RemoveWhere(Func<T, bool> criterion)
{
    List<T> removedItems = null;
    int startingIndex = default(int);
    int contiguousCount = default(int);
    for (int i = 0; i < Count; i++)
    {
        T item = Items[i];
        if (criterion(item))
        {
            if (removedItems == null)
            {
                removedItems = new List<T>();
                startingIndex = i;
                contiguousCount = 0;
            }
            Items.RemoveAt(i);
            removedItems.Add(item);
            contiguousCount++;
        }
        else if (removedItems != null)
        {
            NotifyCollectionChanged(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Remove, removedItems, startingIndex));
            removedItems = null;
            i = startingIndex;
        }
    }
    if (removedItems != null)
    {
        NotifyCollectionChanged(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Remove, removedItems, startingIndex));
    }
}

private void NotifyCollectionChanged(NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
    OnPropertyChanged(new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Count"));
    OnPropertyChanged(new PropertyChangedEventArgs("Item[]"));
    OnCollectionChanged(e);
}

Answer 5

Ok, even though I still wish that ObservableCollection behaved as I wished ... the code below is what I ended up doing. Basically, I created a new collection of T called TrulyObservableCollection and overrided the ClearItems method which I then used to raise a Clearing event.

In the code that uses this TrulyObservableCollection, I use this Clearing event to loop through the items that are still in the collection at that point to do the detach on the event that I was wishing to detach from.

Hope this approach helps someone else as well.

public class TrulyObservableCollection<T> : ObservableCollection<T>
{
    public event EventHandler<EventArgs> Clearing;
    protected virtual void OnClearing(EventArgs e)
    {
        if (Clearing != null)
            Clearing(this, e);
    }

    protected override void ClearItems()
    {
        OnClearing(EventArgs.Empty);
        base.ClearItems();
    }
}

Answer 6

I tackled this one in a slightly different manner as I wanted to register to one event and handle all additions and removals in the event handler. I started off overriding the collection changed event and redirecting reset actions to removal actions with a list of items. This all went wrong as I was using the observable collection as an items source for a collection view and got "Range actions not supported".

I finally created a new event called CollectionChangedRange which acts in the manner I expected the inbuilt version to act.

I can't imagine why this limitation would be allowed and hope that this post at least stops others from going down the dead end that I did.

/// <summary>
/// An observable collection with support for addrange and clear
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
[Serializable]
[TypeConverter(typeof(ExpandableObjectConverter))]
public class ObservableCollectionRange<T> : ObservableCollection<T>
{
    private bool _addingRange;

    [field: NonSerialized]
    public event NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler CollectionChangedRange;

    protected virtual void OnCollectionChangedRange(NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        if ((CollectionChangedRange == null) || _addingRange) return;
        using (BlockReentrancy())
        {
            CollectionChangedRange(this, e);
        }
    }

    public void AddRange(IEnumerable<T> collection)
    {
        CheckReentrancy();
        var newItems = new List<T>();
        if ((collection == null) || (Items == null)) return;
        using (var enumerator = collection.GetEnumerator())
        {
            while (enumerator.MoveNext())
            {
                _addingRange = true;
                Add(enumerator.Current);
                _addingRange = false;
                newItems.Add(enumerator.Current);
            }
        }
        OnCollectionChangedRange(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Add, newItems));
    }

    protected override void ClearItems()
    {
        CheckReentrancy();
        var oldItems = new List<T>(this);
        base.ClearItems();
        OnCollectionChangedRange(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Remove, oldItems));
    }

    protected override void InsertItem(int index, T item)
    {
        CheckReentrancy();
        base.InsertItem(index, item);
        OnCollectionChangedRange(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Add, item, index));
    }

    protected override void MoveItem(int oldIndex, int newIndex)
    {
        CheckReentrancy();
        var item = base[oldIndex];
        base.MoveItem(oldIndex, newIndex);
        OnCollectionChangedRange(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Move, item, newIndex, oldIndex));
    }

    protected override void RemoveItem(int index)
    {
        CheckReentrancy();
        var item = base[index];
        base.RemoveItem(index);
        OnCollectionChangedRange(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Remove, item, index));
    }

    protected override void SetItem(int index, T item)
    {
        CheckReentrancy();
        var oldItem = base[index];
        base.SetItem(index, item);
        OnCollectionChanged(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Replace, oldItem, item, index));
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// A read only observable collection with support for addrange and clear
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
[Serializable]
[TypeConverter(typeof(ExpandableObjectConverter))]
public class ReadOnlyObservableCollectionRange<T> : ReadOnlyObservableCollection<T>
{
    [field: NonSerialized]
    public event NotifyCollectionChangedEventHandler CollectionChangedRange;

    public ReadOnlyObservableCollectionRange(ObservableCollectionRange<T> list) : base(list)
    {
        list.CollectionChangedRange += HandleCollectionChangedRange;
    }

    private void HandleCollectionChangedRange(object sender, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e)
    {
        OnCollectionChangedRange(e);
    }

    protected virtual void OnCollectionChangedRange(NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs args)
    {
        if (CollectionChangedRange != null)
        {
            CollectionChangedRange(this, args);
        }
    }

}