Question

Are there any events my models can bind to, to know their collection has been reset?

When I call:

collection.reset()

I want those removed models to be destroyed and in turn any views to know they are gone. What should I bind to here?

Answer 1

@mu’s answer is correct, but you might also need to know that a model that is added to a collection has the .collection property, which points to the parent collection. So if you are instantiating your models manually, you can just do this:

var myModel = new MyModel();
collection.add(myModel);
collection.bind('reset', model.cleanUp(), model);

But if you’re instantiating your models via the collection, e.g. with collection.fetch(), you need to bind to the collection in the initialize() method of the model:

var MyModel = Backbone.Model.extend({
    initialize: function() {
        if (this.collection) {
            this.collection.bind('reset', this.cleanUp(), this);
        }
    }
    // etc
});