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

We had the same issue here. The Reset action in CollectionChanged does not include the OldItems. We had a workaround: we used instead the following extension method:

public static void RemoveAll(this IList list)
{
   while (list.Count > 0)
   {
      list.RemoveAt(list.Count - 1);
   }
}

We ended up not supporting the Clear() function, and throwing a NotSupportedException in CollectionChanged event for Reset actions. The RemoveAll will trigger a Remove action in CollectionChanged event, with the proper OldItems.

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();
    }
}

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);
        }
    }

}

This is how ObservableCollection works, you can work around this by keeping your own list outside of the ObservableCollection (adding to the list when action is Add, remove when action is Remove etc.) then you can get all the removed items (or added items) when action is Reset by comparing your list with the ObservableCollection.

Another option is to create your own class that implements IList and INotifyCollectionChanged, then you can attach and detach events from within that class (or set OldItems on Clear if you like) - it's really not difficult, but it is a lot of typing.

Looking at the NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs, it appears that OldItems only contains items changed as a result of Replace, Remove, or Move action. It doesn't indicate that it will contain anything on Clear. I suspect that Clear fires the event, but does not registered the removed items and does not invoke the Remove code at all.

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);
        }
    }
}

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);
}