Alex Meyer-Gleaves

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DomainDataSource Extension Methods

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A post by Jeff Handley explains how to add or edit an item in the DomainDataSource in .NET RIA Services, and a comment by David Yack on the forum provides his inherited DomainDataSource class which adds methods for adding and editing items. This code was then turned into a set of extension methods that can be used on any DomainDataSource.

To add a new item or edit an existing item in the DomainDataSource that ships with the .NET RIA Services, you must first cast the DataView property to an IEditableCollectionView. Jeff Handley does a good job of explaining the reason for this in his DomainDataSource.DataView post.

David Yack left a comment on the .NET RIA Services forum with a link to his post where he shares his inherited DomainDataSource class. The inherited class adds methods for adding and editing items that do all the casting to IEditableCollectionView for you. I really liked the idea but didn’t want to create my own derived class, so I took his implementation and turned it into a set of extension methods that are exposed on all DomainDataSource instances.

Update (24-09-2009): Added a Remove extension method. Thanks to Phil Steel for posting the code in his comment.

/// <summary>
///    Extensions to the <see cref="DomainDataSource"/> for adding and editing items.
/// </summary>
public static class DomainDataSourceExtensions
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Adds a new item to the collection.
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T">The type of the item to add.</typeparam>
    /// <param name="source">The <see cref="DomainDataSource"/> being extended.</param>
    /// <returns>The newly added item.</returns>
    public static T AddNew<T>(this DomainDataSource source)
    {
        IEditableCollectionView collection = ((IEditableCollectionView)source.DataView);
        return (T)collection.AddNew();
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Edits an item in the collection.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="source">The <see cref="DomainDataSource"/> being extended.</param>
    /// <param name="itemToEdit">The item to edit.</param>
    public static void EditItem(this DomainDataSource source, object itemToEdit)
    {
        IEditableCollectionView collection = ((IEditableCollectionView)source.DataView);
        collection.EditItem(itemToEdit);
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Removes an item from the collection.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="source">The <see cref="DomainDataSource"/> being extended.</param>
    /// <param name="itemToRemove">The item to remove.</param>
    public static void Remove(this DomainDataSource source, object itemToRemove)
    {
        IEditableCollectionView collection = ((IEditableCollectionView)source.DataView);
        collection.Remove(itemToRemove);
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Commits the add or edit transaction.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="source">The <see cref="DomainDataSource"/> being extended.</param>
    public static void CommitNewAndEdit(this DomainDataSource source)
    {
        IEditableCollectionView collection = ((IEditableCollectionView)source.DataView);
        if (collection.IsAddingNew)
        {
            collection.CommitNew();
        }
        if (collection.IsEditingItem)
        {
            collection.CommitEdit();
        }
    }


    /// <summary>
    /// Cancels the add or edit transaction.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="source">The <see cref="DomainDataSource"/> being extended.</param>
    public static void CancelNewAndEdit(this DomainDataSource source)
    {
        IEditableCollectionView collection = ((IEditableCollectionView)source.DataView);
        if (collection.IsAddingNew)
        {
            collection.CancelNew();
        }
        if (collection.IsEditingItem)
        {
            collection.CancelEdit();
        }
    }
}

Thanks for sharing the code David.