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

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 newItems)
{
    Items.Clear();
    foreach (T newItem in newItems)
    {
        Items.Add(newItem);
    }
    NotifyCollectionChanged(new NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs(NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Reset));
}

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

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