Event 'Disable'

[IanBrooke]

Hi Folks,
In this Windows Forms application I have code which causes numerous events in different places, one example would be it changes the text being displayed in a cell of an unbound DataGridView. This will obviously cause an event and the appropriate handler will start executing, but is there a way to stop that happening?
I can clearly set a global variable before the text change and then exit the handler if it finds the variable set, but this seems very messy, and error prone, but, tbh, I can't think of anything better.
Thanks

[techgnome]

That's one way... the other is to no use the handles clause to hook up the event handler, and to do it yourself, in code with AddHandler... then when you want to "disable" the event, you use RemoveHandler to unhook it.
Example:

AddHandler Button1.Click, AddressOf Button1_Click

...
RemoveHandler Button1.Click, AddressOf Button1_Click

-tg

[IanBrooke]

That's an interesting idea tg, thanks

[Sitten Spynne]

Sadly, having a variable that tells you to ignore the event is sometimes the only approach. This is a super common problem with TextChanged handlers. Usually it looks something like:

Sub TextBox1_TextChanged(...)
    If SomeCondition() Then
        TextBox1.Text &= "a"
    End If
End Sub

In some circumstances, that'll infinite loop. So we tend to guard it like this:

Private _isCorrectingTextBox As Boolean = False

Sub TextBox1_TextChanged(...)
    If _isCorrectingTextBox Then
        Return
    End If

    If SomeCondition() Then
        _isCorrectingTextBox = True
        TextBox1.Text &= "a"
        _isCorrectingTextBox = False
    End If
End Sub

It's a pain in the butt, but it is what it is.

[4x2y]

Sadly, having a variable that tells you to ignore the event is sometimes the only approach. This is a super common problem with TextChanged handlers. Usually it looks something like:

Sub TextBox1_TextChanged(...)
    If SomeCondition() Then
        TextBox1.Text &= "a"
    End If
End Sub

In some circumstances, that'll infinite loop. So we tend to guard it like this:

Private _isCorrectingTextBox As Boolean = False

Sub TextBox1_TextChanged(...)
    If _isCorrectingTextBox Then
        Return
    End If

    If SomeCondition() Then
        _isCorrectingTextBox = True
        TextBox1.Text &= "a"
        _isCorrectingTextBox = False
    End If
End Sub

It's a pain in the butt, but it is what it is.

The same approach can be used in TextChanged too, the following code behave the same as your code which use _isCorrectingTextBox flag

    Private Sub TextBox1_TextChanged(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles TextBox1.TextChanged
        If TextBox1.Text.Length < 8 Then
            RemoveHandler TextBox1.TextChanged, AddressOf TextBox1_TextChanged
            TextBox1.Text &= "a"
            AddHandler TextBox1.TextChanged, AddressOf TextBox1_TextChanged
        End If
    End Sub