Why would putting a no-op Converter on a Binding change its behavior?

Question

I'm in the midst of testing a user control I've built, and I'm encountering something that's inexplicable to me.

The control's an extension of the ComboBox that handles values of a specific custom type. It has a dependency property of that custom type that is the target property of a Binding.

I've got a trace statement in the setter, and I can see that the property is getting set. But it's not appearing in my user control.

Now, ordinarily I'd say, okay, I've got a bug in my user control. I probably do, though I'm baffled about it. But this question isn't about finding the bug in my control. Read on; here is where it gets weird.

I'm also using Bea Stollnitz's little value converter to help debug the Binding:

public class DebuggingConverter : IValueConverter
{
    public object Convert(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
    {
        return value; // Add the breakpoint here!!
    }
    public object ConvertBack(object value, Type targetType, object parameter, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException("This method should never be called");
    }
}

The idea behind this is that I add this converter to my Binding and can set a breakpoint to see what value is being pushed out to the target. Okay, that works just fine. I can see that the value is being pushed out.

In fact, it works a little too fine. If the DebuggingConverter is attached to the Binding, the user control displays the value. If it's not, it doesn't.

How is that even possible? How could a value converter that does nothing affect the behavior of a bound control?

Edit:

Not that it's likely to help, but here's the XAML for the user control:

<a:CodeLookupBox
    Grid.Column="1"
    Grid.IsSharedSizeScope="True"
    MinWidth="100"
    Style="{Binding Style}">
    <a:CodeLookupBox.CodeLookupTable>
        <Binding Path="Codes" Mode="OneWay"/>
    </a:CodeLookupBox.CodeLookupTable>
    <a:CodeLookupBox.SelectedCode>
        <Binding Path="Value" Mode="TwoWay" ValidatesOnDataErrors="True"/>
    </a:CodeLookupBox.SelectedCode>
</a:CodeLookupBox>

Without the converter on the second binding, the control behaves as though I didn't set SelectedCode. Even though a trace statement in the OnSelectedCodePropertyChanged handler shows that e.Value does indeed contain the correct value. This happens irrespective of whether the converter's attached or not.

I've been trying to reverse-engineer this problem with a thought experiment: if you wanted to create a bound user control whose behavior changed if a no-op converter were attached to its binding, how would you do it? I don't know enough about binding to come up with an answer.

Answer 1

Well, the good news is, I know why SelectedCode isn't being set when I'm not using a value converter. The bad news is, I still have something of a mystery, but the problem's been pushed up the food chain a bit, and I have a workaround.

This control is essentially a strongly-typed combo box with a bunch of additional features that are made possible by the fact that it knows what kind of items are in it. The SelectedCode and CodeLookupTable properties are strongly typed, and they hide the underlying SelectedItem and ItemsSource properties, which aren't. (This, by the way, is why this is a user control and not a subclass of ComboBox; I don't want those properties to be visible because a lot of things can happen if they get set improperly, none of them good.)

Here's what's happening. This is my debugging output when the value converter is attached (the number is the hash code of the control, because I've got a bunch of them that all get drawn simultaneously when the program's initialized):

14626603: OnCodeLookupTablePropertyChanged
   CodeLookupTable property set to Proceedings.Model.CodeLookupTable
   box.MainComboBox.ItemsSource = MS.Internal.Data.EnumerableCollectionView
14626603: OnSelectedCodePropertyChanged:
   SelectedCode property set to Unlicensed Driver [VC12500(A)]
   box.MainComboBox.ItemsSource = MS.Internal.Data.EnumerableCollectionView

This is the expected behavior. The CodeLookupTable property is set, so setting SelectedCode to one of the items in that collection correctly sets SelectedItem on the underlying ComboBox.

But without the value converter, we get this:

16143157: OnSelectedCodePropertyChanged:
   SelectedCode property set to Unlicensed Driver [VC12500(A)]
   box.MainComboBox.ItemsSource = 
16143157: OnCodeLookupTablePropertyChanged
   CodeLookupTable property set to Proceedings.Model.CodeLookupTable
   box.MainComboBox.ItemsSource = MS.Internal.Data.EnumerableCollectionView

Here, the SelectedCode property is being set before the CodeLookupTable property is. So when the method tries to set SelectedItem on the underlying ComboBox, nothing happens, because the ItemsSource is null.

And here is the root of the problem. I've foolishly assumed that the order that bindings update their target in is the same as the order they're declared in the XAML. (One of the reasons I've expressed the bindings as elements instead of attributes is because the order of elements in an XML document is deterministic and the order of attributes isn't. It's not like I didn't think about this.) This is apparently not the case.

I've also assumed, maybe a little less foolishly, that the order in which bindings update their target isn't dependent on whether or not they have attached value converters. Well, it is. I wonder what else it depends on.

Mercifully, I have a way to work around this. Since my CodeLookup object contains a reference to the CodeLookupTable, I can make the SelectedCode setter set the CodeLookupTable (and thus the ItemsSource) property first, if it hasn't already been set. That'll make this problem go away without having to stick a fake value converter on the binding and hope that the way bindings behave never changes.

Edit

Here's what the property declarations look like:

#region SelectedCode

public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectedCodeProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
    "SelectedCode", typeof(CodeLookup), typeof(CodeLookupBox),
    new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(OnSelectedCodePropertyChanged));

private static void OnSelectedCodePropertyChanged(DependencyObject source, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
    CodeLookupBox box = (CodeLookupBox)source;
    CodeLookup code = e.NewValue as CodeLookup;
    // this right here is the fix to the original problem:
    if (box.CodeLookupTable == null && code != null)
    {
        box.CodeLookupTable = code.Table;
    }
    box.MainComboBox.SelectedItem = e.NewValue;
}

public CodeLookup SelectedCode
{
    get { return GetValue(SelectedCodeProperty) as CodeLookup; }
    set { SetValue(SelectedCodeProperty, value); }
}

#endregion

#region CodeLookupTable

public static readonly DependencyProperty CodeLookupTableProperty = DependencyProperty.Register(
    "CodeLookupTable", typeof(CodeLookupTable), typeof(CodeLookupBox),
    new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(OnCodeLookupTablePropertyChanged));

private static void OnCodeLookupTablePropertyChanged(DependencyObject source,
DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e)
{
    CodeLookupBox box = (CodeLookupBox)source;
    CodeLookupTable table = (CodeLookupTable)e.NewValue;

    box.ViewSource = new CollectionViewSource { Source = table.Codes };
    box.View = box.ViewSource.View;
    box.MainComboBox.ItemsSource = box.View;

}

public CodeLookupTable CodeLookupTable
{
    get { return GetValue(CodeLookupTableProperty) as CodeLookupTable; }
    set { SetValue(CodeLookupTableProperty, value); }
}

#endregion