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WCF Data services SaveChanges not firing WritingEntity event

I am using WCF data services (5.6 now) and since Enums are not supported (and for other reasons), I have some additional properties added to the client side classes that I intend to remove during SaveChanges using the WritingEntity event following the example in http://blogs.msdn.com/b/phaniraj/archive/2008/12/11/customizing-serialization-of-entities-in-the-ado-net-data-services-client-library.aspx
My constructor attaches the event but I find that sometimes the event fires and other times (more often) it doesn't.
public MyDataContext(System.Uri serviceRoot, bool ignoreProperties)
: this(serviceRoot)
{
if (ignoreProperties)
this.WritingEntity += EdiContext_WritingEntity;
this.SendingRequest2+=OnSendingRequest;
}
To Save changes
db.AttachTo("Maps", map, "*");
db.UpdateObject(map);
ProcessMapCoordinates(db, map);
ProcessModifiers(map, db);
db.SaveChanges();
The SendingRequest2 event does fire, I use it to attach some header information to the request in order to support multiple data
private void OnSendingRequest(object sender, SendingRequest2EventArgs e)
{
e.RequestMessage.SetHeader("profile", ClientSettings.Instance.Profile);
}
Does anyone know under what circumstances the WritingEntity event will not fire?
Is there another way to prevent extended properties from the partial class from being serialized?
Thanks

It appears this was caused by the use of public Enums on the client side partial class. Once I changed the access modifier of the enum to internal the problem went away.
In the process I learned an even better way of controlling what properties are serialized, by hooking into the RequestPipeline events:
if (ignoreProperties)
{
this.Configurations.RequestPipeline.OnEntryStarting((a =>
{
entityType = Type.GetType(a.Entry.TypeName);
if (entityType != null)
{
var props =
entityType.GetProperties()
.Where(
property =>
property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof (DoNotSerializeAttribute), false).Length > 0)
.Select(p => p.Name)
.ToArray();
a.Entry.RemoveProperties(props);
}
}));
}

C# - Static events on non-static classes

There are situations where I'm quite fond of static events, but the fact that I rarely see them in other people's code makes me wonder if I'm missing something important. I found a lot of discussions about static events on this site, but most of them deal with situations that I'm not interested in (like on static classes) or where I wouldn't think of using them in the first place.
What I am interested in are situations where I might have many instances of something and a single instance of a long-living "manager" object that reacts to something on those instances. A very simple example to illustrate what I mean:
public class God {
//the list of followers is really big and changes all the time,
//it seems like a waste of time to
//register/unregister events for each and every one...
readonly List<Believer> Believers = new List<Believer>();
God() {
//...so instead let's have a static event and listen to that
Believer.Prayed += this.Believer_Prayed;
}
void Believer_Prayed(Believer believer, string prayer) {
//whatever
}
}
public class Believer {
public static event Action<Believer, string> Prayed;
void Pray() {
if (Prayed != null) {
Prayed(this, "can i have stuff, please");
}
}
}
To me, this looks like a much cleaner and simpler solution than having an instance event and I don't have to monitor changes in the believers collection either. In cases where the Believer class can "see" the God-type class, I might sometimes use a NotifyGodOfPrayer()-method instead (which was the preferred answer in a few similar questions), but often the Believer-type class is in a "Models"-assembly where I can't or don't want to access the God class directly.
Are there any actual downsides to this approach?
Edit: Thanks to everyone who has already taken the time to answer.
My example may be bad, so I would like to clarify my question:
If I use this kind of static events in situations, where
I'm sure there will only ever be one instance of the subscriber-object
that is guaranteed to exist as long as the application is running
and the number of instances I'm watching is huge
then are there potential problems with this approach that I'm not aware of?
Unless the answer to that question is "yes", I'm not really looking for alternative implementations, though I really appreciate everyone trying to be helpful.
I'm not looking for the most pretty solution (I'd have to give that prize to my own version simply for being short and easy to read and maintain :)

One important thing to know about events is that they cause objects which are hooked to an event not to be garbage collected until event owner is garbage collected, or until event handler is unhooked.
To put it into your example, if you had a polytheistic pantheon with many gods, where you promoted and demoted gods such as
new God("Svarog");
new God("Svantevit");
new God("Perun");
gods would remain in your RAM while they are attached to Believer.Prayed. This would cause your application to leak gods.
I'll comment on design decision also, but I understand that example you made is maybe not best copy of your real scenario.
It seems more reasonable to me not to create dependency from God to Believer, and to use events. Good approach would be to create an event aggregator which would stand between believers and gods. For example:
public interface IPrayerAggregator
{
void Pray(Believer believer, string prayer);
void RegisterGod(God god);
}
// god does
prayerAggregator.RegisterGod(this);
// believer does
prayerAggregator.Pray(this, "For the victory!");
Upon Pray method being called, event aggregator calls appropriate method of God class in turn. To manage references and avoid memory leaks, you could create UnregisterGod method or hold gods in collection of weak references such as
public class Priest : IPrayerAggregator
{
private List<WeakReference> _gods;
public void Pray(Believer believer, string prayer)
{
foreach (WeakReference godRef in _gods) {
God god = godRef.Target as God;
if (god != null)
god.SomeonePrayed(believer, prayer);
else
_gods.Remove(godRef);
}
}
public void RegisterGod(God god)
{
_gods.Add(new WeakReference(god, false));
}
}
Quick tip: Temporarily store event delegate as listeners might unhook their event handlers
void Pray() {
var handler = Prayed;
if (handler != null) {
handler(this, "can i have stuff, please");
}
}
Edit
Having in mind details you added about your scenario (huge number of event invokers, constant and single event watcher) I think you chose right scenario, purely for efficiency reasons. It creates least memory and cpu overhead. I wouldn't take this approach generally, but for scenario you described static event is very pragmatic solution that I might take.
One downside I see is flow of control. If your event listener is created in single instance as you say, then I would leverage singleton (anti)pattern and invoke method of God from Believer directly.
God.Instance.Pray(this, "For the victory!");
//or
godInstance.Pray(this, "For the victory!");
Why? Because then you get more granular control over performing action of praying. If you decide down the line that you need to subclass Believer to a special kind that doesn't pray on certain days, then you would have control over this.

I actually think that having an instance even would be cleaner and defiantly more readable.
It is much more simple to view it as, an instance is preying, so his pray event gets trigger. And I don't see ant downsides for that. I don't think that monitor changes is not more of a hustle than monitoring the static event. but is the correct way to go...
Monitoring the list:
Change the list to be an ObservableCollection (and take a look at NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs ).
Monitor it by:
public class God {
readonly ObservableCollection<Believer> Believers = new ObservableCollection<Believer>();
public God() {
Believers = new ObservableCollection<T>();
Believers.CollectionChanged += BelieversListChanged;
}
private void BelieversListChanged(object sender, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs args) {
if ((e.Action == NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Remove || e.Action == NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Replace) && e.OldItems != null)
{
foreach (var oldItem in e.OldItems)
{
var bel= (Believer)e.oldItem;
bel.Prayed -= Believer_Prayed;
}
}
if((e.Action==NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Add || e.Action==NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Replace) && e.NewItems!=null)
{
foreach(var newItem in e.NewItems)
{
foreach (var oldItem in e.OldItems)
{
var bel= (Believer)e.newItem;
bel.Prayed += Believer_Prayed;
}
}
}
}
void Believer_Prayed(Believer believer, string prayer) {
//whatever
}
}

Is there a way to accomplish the equivalent of passing an "event" by reference?

I put "event" in quotes because I realize that it's a bit of syntax sugar, rather than a true type.
I have some events which are simply chained to matching events in another class. So when the event is raised, the passage is like
Raiser -> Proxy -> Subscriber
So in the Proxy class I have a common pattern like this:
Raiser.SomeEvent +=
(_, args) =>
{
if (this.SomeEvent != null)
this.SomeEvent(this, args);
};
To tidy up my code I wanted to move this out to another method that returns a new delegate that wraps the above event-calling code:
public static EventHandler GetHandlerDelegate(EventHandler handler, Object sender)
{
return
(_, args) =>
{
if (handler != null)
handler(sender, args);
};
}
And then in Proxy I can just do:
Raiser.SomeEvent += GetHandlerDelegate(this.SomeEvent, this);
Which is much neater.
Well this is fine as long as Subscriber doesn't decide to subscribe to Proxy.SomeEvent after the above call. Unfortunately I'm not passing the "event" around by reference as I'd hoped; I now understand that I'm just passing the invocation list, so when OtherClass.SomeEvent happens and that anonymous method is called and invokes the "event" (delegate) it was given, only the delegates that had been added to that event at the time I called GetHandlerDelegate() will be called. While that would actually suffice for my current situation, it's really not acceptable to code it that way.
I've read some other SO questions and I gather there is something called Reactive Extensions that might help, but at this time I'm looking for a simpler solution if there is one. (If not, I just won't do this.)
Is there another way I can accomplish what I'm trying to do, without said drawback?
If this question is unclear, please see my answer which hopefully helps clarify it.

EDIT: Okay, I think I get the point now. It's actually quite simple. You should be able to write the proxy to just have an event, and then make the proxy itself subscribe to the Raiser's event, like this (just for EventHandler - I'll come to that later on):
Proxy proxy = new Proxy();
raiser.SomeEvent += Proxy.Handler;
// Then in the subscriber...
proxy.ProxiedEvent += (whatever)
// And the proxy class...
public class Proxy
{
public event EventHandler ProxiedEvent;
public void Handler(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
EventHandler proxied = ProxiedEvent;
if (proxied != null)
{
// Or pass on the original sender if you want to
proxied(this, e);
}
}
}
Now, the difficulty here is getting it to work generically. I can't currently think of any way of doing that, although I'm somewhat distracted right now.
Is this the sort of thing you were thinking of, or does it at least help you think about things differently?

Since my original goal of doing:
Raiser.SomeEvent += GetHandlerDelegate(this.SomeEvent, this);
is impossible, I've compromised and come up with this:
Raiser.SomeEvent += (_, args) => RaiseEvent(this.SomeEvent, this, args);
Whereas GetHandlerDelegate() would return a delegate which raises the event, RaiseEvent() simply (you guessed it) raises the event.
public static void RaiseEvent(EventHandler _event, Object sender, EventArgs args)
{
if (_event != null)
_event(sender, args);
}
And to support events using custom EventArgs:
public static void RaiseEvent<TArgs>(EventHandler<TArgs> _event, Object sender, TArgs args)
where TArgs : EventArgs
{
if (_event != null)
_event(sender, args);
}
I've put these methods in a static helper class, so the actual call is slightly uglier; here's an example:
ViewControl.OpenFilesetClick += (_, args) => EventHelper.Raise(OpenFilesetClick, this, args);
(I also renamed the method to Raise() and dropped the optional this from the event name being passed).
But I'm not entirely convinced if this is worthwhile, considering the alternative was arguably easier to read:
ViewControl.OpenFilesetClick += (_, args) =>
{
if (OpenFilesetClick != null)
OpenFilesetClick(this, args);
};
Anyway, it was an interesting way to learn more about how events and delegates work (or how they don't work).

problem with RX and web service collection loading wp7

I'm beginner with C# and wp7 platform and I have some problem with good idea to get request from web service.
I made webservice in PHP (nusoap - WSDL) and everything is working fine in "normal" using.
Now I have ObservableCollection saved in IsolatedStorage with I load when Page is open (List of watched stacks exchange). Then I want to refresh data for every item from web service.
I don't know whether this is a good idea.
Code:
private GPWWebservicePortTypeClient client = new GPWWebservicePortTypeClient();
private ObservableCollection<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues> StoredStock =
new ObservableCollection<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues>();
public const string _fileName = "listaObserwowanych.xml";
public Page()
{
InitializeComponent();
DataContext = App.ViewModel;
this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(Page_Loaded);
client.GetLastValueCompleted +=
new EventHandler<GetLastValueCompletedEventArgs>(client_GetLastValueCompleted);
foreach (var itemGetValuese in App.ViewModel.Items)
{
client.GetLastValueAsync(itemGetValuese.name);
}
var o =
Observable.FromEvent<GetLastValueCompletedEventArgs(client,"GetLastValueCompleted")
.Subscribe(setList);
}
void client_GetLastValueCompleted(object sender, GetLastValueCompletedEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Error != null)
{
MessageBox.Show(Convert.ToString(e.Error));
}
else
{
ObservableCollection<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues> ListValues =
(ObservableCollection<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues>)
JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(e.Result,
typeof(ObservableCollection<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues>));
StoredStock.Add(ListValues[0]);
}
}
private void setList(IEvent<GetLastValueCompletedEventArgs> ex)
{
List.ItemsSource = StoredStock;
}
void Page_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
App.ViewModel.LoadData();
List.ItemsSource = App.ViewModel.Items;
}
Like u see I use RX to call method client_GetLastValueCompleted add store result to auxiliary variable (StoredStock). Then refresh List in setList method, but that method is client_GetLastValueCompleted what is not soo good idea, becouse I need to run that method only when all of runned GetLastValueAsync in foreach is completed.
Second problem: becouse of async web service method StoredStock sometime have different order than App.ViewModel.Items .
Any good idea how to do that in right way?
Best regards,
Lukas

You're really mixing up a number of ways to call web services and Rx. You really need to decide on a single way and stick to it.
If you're going to use Rx, then you'll have something like this:
public Page()
{
InitializeComponent();
DataContext = App.ViewModel;
this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(Page_Loaded);
}
void Page_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
App.ViewModel.LoadData();
var storedStock =
new ObservableCollection<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues>();
List.ItemsSource = storedStock;
var values =
Observable.Using<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues, GPWWebservicePortTypeClient>
(() => new GPWWebservicePortTypeClient(), ws =>
{
var clientGetLastValue = Observable
.FromAsyncPattern<string, GetLastValueResponse>
(ws.BeginGetLastValue, ws.EndGetLastValue);
Func<string, WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues> deserializeFirst = r =>
((List<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues>)JsonConvert
.DeserializeObject(r,
typeof(List<WebServiceClass.ItemGetValues>)))
.First();
return
from item in App.ViewModel.Items
from e in clientGetLastValue(item)
select deserializeFirst(e.Result);
});
values.Subscribe(storedStock.Add);
}
You'll have to get the right method call names for your web service client, but the code should roughly be right. Let me know how you go.
I corrected the code above. Should have returned the query inside the Using call rather than assign it to values.
I corrected the call to FromAsyncPattern to use the correct method names and return type from the actual web service reference class sent via email.
It should look like this:
Observable.FromAsyncPattern<string, GetLastValueResponse>
(ws.BeginGetLastValue, ws.EndGetLastValue);

If you're a beginner with C#, try to avoid RX for the time being. It is a cool technology, but if you use it without clear understanding of what is going on, it will bring more problems than solve.
Use a simple event, and when each async item arrives, locate and update the correspondent one in the stored list.

How to run a function on a background thread for Windows Phone 7?

I'm using MVVM Light to build a WP7 (Windows Phone 7) application. I wish to have all the work performed by the Model to be run on a background thread. Then, when the work is done, raise an event so that the ViewModel can process the data.
I have already found out that I cannot invoke a Delegate asynchronously from an WP7 app.
Currently I am trying to use ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem() to run some code on a background thread and use MVVM Light's DispatcherHelper.CheckBeginInvodeOnUI() to raise an event on the UI thread to signal the ViewModel that the data has been loaded (this crashes VS2010 and Blend 4 when they try to display a design-time view).
Is there any sample code to run some code on a background thread and then dispatch an event back to the UI thread for a WP7 app?
Thanks in advance,
Jeff.
Edit - Here is a sample Model
public class DataModel
{
public event EventHandler<DataLoadingEventArgs> DataLoadingComplete;
public event EventHandler<DataLoadingErrorEventArgs> DataLoadingError;
List<Data> _dataCasch = new List<Data>();
public void GetData()
{
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(func =>
{
try
{
LoadData();
if (DataLoadingComplete != null)
{
//Dispatch complete event back to the UI thread
DispatcherHelper.CheckBeginInvokeOnUI(() =>
{
//raise event
DataLoadingComplete(this, new DataLoadingEventArgs(_dataCasch));
});
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
if (DataLoadingError != null)
{
//Dispatch error event back to the UI thread
DispatcherHelper.CheckBeginInvokeOnUI(() =>
{
//raise error
DataLoadingError(this, new DataLoadingErrorEventArgs(ex));
});
}
}
});
}
private void LoadData()
{
//Do work to load data....
}
}

Here's how I'd approach a solution to this.
Your ViewModel implements INotifyPropertyChanged right? There's no need to dispatch the Events. Just raise them "bare" in the Model, then dispatch the RaisePropertyChanged in the ViewModel.
And yes, you should have some sort of singleton model/database in your code. After all, what is a SQL Database if not some gigantic singleton? Since we don't have a database in WP7, don't be shy creating a singleton object. I have one called "Database" :)
I've just tried threading my dataloads in there, and realise that in fact the best approach is simply implementing INotifyPropertyChanged right down at the model level. There's no shame in this.
So given that, here's what I'm doing in the singleton Database object to load and return my Tours "table" (note the thread.sleep to make it take a visible amount of time to load, normally its sub 100ms). Database class now implements INotifyPropertyChanged, and raises events when loading is completed:
public ObservableCollection<Tour> Tours
{
get
{
if ( _tours == null )
{
_tours = new ObservableCollection<Tour>();
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(LoadTours);
}
return _tours;
}
}
private void LoadTours(object o)
{
var start = DateTime.Now;
//simlate lots of work
Thread.Sleep(5000);
_tours = IsoStore.Deserialize<ObservableCollection<Tour>>( ToursFilename ) ?? new ObservableCollection<Tour>();
Debug.WriteLine( "Deserialize time: " + DateTime.Now.Subtract( start ).ToString() );
RaisePropertyChanged("Tours");
}
You follow? I'm deserializing the Tour list on a background thread, then raising a propertychanged event.
Now in the ViewModel, I want a list of TourViewModels to bind to, which I select with a linq query once I see that the Tours table has changed. It's probably a bit cheap to listen for the Database event in the ViewModel - it might be "nicer" to encapsulate that in the model, but let's not make work we we don't need to eh?
Hook the Database event in the Viewmodel's constructor:
public TourViewModel()
{
Database.Instance.PropertyChanged += DatabasePropertyChanged;
}
Listen for the appropriate table change (we love magic strings! ;-) ):
private void DatabasePropertyChanged(object sender, PropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
if(e.PropertyName == "Tours")
{
LoadTourList();
}
}
Select the records I want from the table, then tell the view there is new data:
public void LoadTourList()
{
AllTours = ( from t in Database.Instance.Tours
select new TourViewModel( t ) ).ToList();
RaisePropertyChanged( "AllTours" );
}
And lastly, in your ViewModelBase, it's best to check if your RaisePropertyChanged needs dispatching. My "SafeDispatch" method is pretty much the same as the one from MVVMlight:
private void RaisePropertyChanged(string property)
{
if ( PropertyChanged != null )
{
UiHelper.SafeDispatch(() =>
PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(property)));
}
}
This works perfectly in my code, and I think is fairly tidy?
Lastly, extra for experts: in WP7, it might be good to add a ProgressBar with IsIndeterminate=True to your page - this will display the "dotted" progress bar. Then what you can do is when the ViewModel first loads you could set a "ProgressBarVisible" property to Visible (and raise the associated PropertyChanged event). Bind the ProgressBar's visibility to this ViewModel property. When the Database PropertyChanged event fires, set the visibility to Collapsed to make the progressbar go away.
This way the user will see the "IsIndeterminate" progress bar at the top of their screen while the deserialization is running. Nice!

I have not developed for WP7 before, but I found this article that might be useful!
Here is the Dining Philosopher sample code from the article that should give you a good idea on how to raise an event to the UI from another thread:
public DinnersViewModel(IDinnerCatalog catalog)
{
theCatalog = catalog;
theCatalog.DinnerLoadingComplete +=
new EventHandler<DinnerLoadingEventArgs>(
Dinners_DinnerLoadingComplete);
}
public void LoadDinners()
{
theCatalog.GetDinners();
}
void Dinners_DinnerLoadingComplete(
object sender, DinnerLoadingEventArgs e)
{
// Fire Event on UI Thread
View.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
{
// Clear the list
theDinners.Clear();
// Add the new Dinners
foreach (Dinner d in e.Results)
theDinners.Add(d);
if (LoadComplete != null)
LoadComplete(this, null);
});
}
I hope it's helpful :).
One thing that's confusing: you said that when you use the helper to raise the event, then VS2010 crashes... what exactly are you seeing when it's crashing? Are you getting an exception?

Jeff, I'm still figuring this stuff out myself. I posted a similar question and ended up answering it myself by building a simple sample. Here:
A super-simple MVVM-Light WP7 sample?
The summary is:
1) I derived my Model (yes my model) from ViewModelBase. This gives me Mvvm-Light's implementation of messaging and INotifyPropertyChanged which is handy. You could argue this is not "pure" but I don't think it matters.
2) I used Mvvm-Light DispatcherHelper.CheckBeginInvokeOnUIhelper just as you did (from my Model, NOT my ViewModel).
Hope this helps.