System.Data breaking changes in latest .NET Framework update

UPDATE: The Program Manager at Microsoft in charge of this area of the .NET Framework has confirmed that this was a bug, and that it will be fixed in the next update.

We've noticed some breaking changes in the System.Data assembly, version 2.0.50727.1378, changes that will affect the way the XtraGrid works when adding new records. This is the version that gets installed with Visual Studio 2008 beta 2.

Suppose we have the following code (where the event handlers also log their execution):

  CurrencyManager manager = GetCurrencyManager(CreateView());
  manager.CurrentChanged += new EventHandler(manager_CurrentChanged);
  manager.ListChanged += new System.ComponentModel.ListChangedEventHandler(manager_ListChanged);
  manager.CurrentItemChanged += new EventHandler(manager_CurrentItemChanged);
  manager.ItemChanged += new ItemChangedEventHandler(manager_ItemChanged);
  
  WriteLog("===Add");
  manager.AddNew();
  WriteLog("===End");
  
  manager.EndCurrentEdit();

With the old version of System.Data, we would get this output:

  0: ===Add
  1: ItemChanged e.Index:-1
  2: ListChanged ItemAdded - old:-1, new:100
  3: CurrentChanged
  4: CurrentItemChanged
  5: ===End
  6: CurrentItemChanged
  7: ItemChanged e.Index:-1
  8: ListChanged ItemAdded - old:-1, new:100

With this latest version of System.Data, we get this instead:

  0: ===Add
  1: ItemChanged e.Index:-1
  2: ListChanged ItemAdded - old:-1, new:100
  3: CurrentChanged
  4: CurrentItemChanged
  5: ===End

As you can easliy see there are no longer any events fired with EndCurrentEdit(). This is hugely problematic since there is no chance to find out when the adding of the current row has been completed.

As it happens, we can handle the new behavior when all the data operations are made through the grid and data controller (we are in control, of course), but in many cases our customers will make direct calls through the DataView or through the CurrencyManager instance. In this latter scenario, the DataController and real DataView will lose synchronization and have different views of the universe, causing unknown and unforeseen problems.

(Note that although I'm only talking about XtraGrid here, it's likely that this issue will affect other controls and applications as well, as well as other grid controls.)

We are in touch with Microsoft's CLR team to try and resolve this issue.

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