Question

How can I subscribe to a ObservableCollection<??> without knowing the element type of the collection? Is there a way to do this without too many ‘magic strings’?

This is a question for the .NET version 3.5. I think 4.0 would make my life much easier, right?

Type type = collection.GetType();
if(type.IsGenericType 
   && type.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(ObservableCollection<>))
{
    // I cannot cast the collection here
    ObservableCollection<object> x = collection;
}

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

ObservableCollection implements INotifyCollectionChanged interface, so it can be very simple:

((INotifyCollectionChanged) collection).CollectionChanged += 
        collection_CollectionChanged;