Insert data in a List without fireing the event receiver

Question

I have this Situation:

I've made a list and added an event receiver to it. This event receiver changes some fields and adds new data(automatically filled date etc.).

The Problem:

The client wants some old data added to the list. When we add it, the Event receiver fires and changes some of the data(dates, some fields etc.) as it is supposed to and for the old data that is a problem. Another problem is that I can not modify the code of the receiver itself.

What I Tought:

I want to create a console application that gets the old data and inserts it in the list. The problem is that I don't know how to disable the event receiver in this particular case.

*I know that this "solution" can cause tons of security issues, but it's my best option for now.

All ideas are welcome.

Answer 1

You can remove the event receivers, add your items and then add the event receivers back. You can do that with PowerShell or C#.

With C#:

To remove the event receivers loop through list.EventReceivers and delete the one you want (SPEventReceiverDefinition.Delete())

To add an event receiver:

SPEventReceiverDefinition eventReceiver = list.EventReceivers.Add();
eventReceiver.Name = "EventName";
eventReceiver.Type = SPEventReceiverType.ItemAdded; //or any other type
eventReceiver.SequenceNumber = 10000;
eventReceiver.Assembly = "YourAssembly,Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=....(your token)";
eventReceiver.Class = "YourClassWithTheEventReceivers";
eventReceiver.Update();

You can do this in the same way with PowerShell: http://naimmurati.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/add-modify-or-delete-list-event-receivers-with-powershell/

Answer 2

Approach 1: if you know which feature is attaching the event receiver to the list, deactivate the feature, run your console to update list and activate that feature again.

Approach 2: Write code to remove the event receiver, then run your code to update items and then write another code to attach event receiver back.

See Remove Event receiver

See Attach event receiver to list