ObservableCollection(Of T) Class

In many cases the data that you work with is a collection of objects. For example, a common scenario in data binding is to use an ItemsControl such as a ListBox, ListView, or TreeView to display a collection of records.

You can enumerate over any collection that implements the IEnumerable interface. However, to set up dynamic bindings so that insertions or deletions in the collection update the UI automatically, the collection must implement the INotifyCollectionChanged interface. This interface exposes the CollectionChanged event, an event that should be raised whenever the underlying collection changes.

WPF provides the ObservableCollection(Of T) class, which is a built-in implementation of a data collection that implements the INotifyCollectionChanged interface.

Before implementing your own collection, consider using ObservableCollection(Of T) or one of the existing collection classes, such as List(Of T), Collection(Of T), and BindingList(Of T), among many others. If you have an advanced scenario and want to implement your own collection, consider using IList, which provides a non-generic collection of objects that can be individually accessed by index. Implementing IList provides the best performance with the data binding engine.

Note
To fully support transferring data values from binding source objects to binding targets, each object in your collection that supports bindable properties must implement an appropriate property changed notification mechanism such as the INotifyPropertyChanged interface.

For more information, see "Binding to Collections" in Data Binding Overview.

Notes on XAML Usage

This example shows how to create and bind to a collection that derives from the ObservableCollection(Of T) class, which is a collection class that provides notifications when items get added or removed.

The following example shows the implementation of a NameList collection:

public class NameList : ObservableCollection<PersonName>
{
    public NameList() : base()
    {
        Add(new PersonName("Willa", "Cather"));
        Add(new PersonName("Isak", "Dinesen"));
        Add(new PersonName("Victor", "Hugo"));
        Add(new PersonName("Jules", "Verne"));
    }
  }

  public class PersonName
  {
      private string firstName;
      private string lastName;

      public PersonName(string first, string last)
      {
          this.firstName = first;
          this.lastName = last;
      }

      public string FirstName
      {
          get { return firstName; }
          set { firstName = value; }
      }

      public string LastName
      {
          get { return lastName; }
          set { lastName = value; }
      }
  }

You can make the collection available for binding the same way you would with other common language runtime (CLR) objects, as described in How to: Make Data Available for Binding in XAML. For example, you can instantiate the collection in XAML and specify the collection as a resource, as shown here:

<Window
  xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
  xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
  xmlns:c="clr-namespace:SDKSample"
  x:Class="SDKSample.Window1"
  Width="400"
  Height="280"
  Title="MultiBinding Sample">
	
  <Window.Resources>
    <c:NameList x:Key="NameListData"/>


...


</Window.Resources>

You can then bind to the collection:

<ListBox Width="200"
         ItemsSource="{Binding Source={StaticResource NameListData}}"
         ItemTemplate="{StaticResource NameItemTemplate}"
         IsSynchronizedWithCurrentItem="True"/>

The definition of NameItemTemplate is not shown here.

Note
The objects in your collection must satisfy the requirements described in the Binding Sources Overview. In particular, if you are using OneWay or TwoWay (for example, you want your UI to update when the source properties change dynamically), you must implement a suitable property changed notification mechanism such as the INotifyPropertyChanged interface.

For more information, see the Binding to Collections section in the Data Binding Overview.

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

Reference

Other Resources