recognise combobox deselect when using Swing + models?

I'm trying to write a nice GUI in Swing that uses the proper Model-Delegate pattern as much as possible. I have a JComboBox that when changed, needs to update the model with the new data. To get the currently selected item, I am using:

fooCombo.addItemListener(new ItemListener() {
    public void itemStateChanged(final ItemEvent arg0) {
        fooChangedHandler((Foo) fooModel.getSelectedItem());
    }
});

Which returns what the data was changed to as a nice Object. However, I can't find a way to find out the old value, so I don't know which object needs to be changed. Any ideas here?

From stackoverflow

• As the default ComboBoxModel and ItemEvent does not let you get the previously selected value you could implement your own ComboBoxModel with this feature.

• Foo oldFoo;
  ....
  fooCombo.addItemListener(new ItemListener() {
      public void itemStateChanged(final ItemEvent arg0) {
          Foo newFoo = (Foo) fooModel.getSelectedItem();
          fooChangedHandler(oldFoo, newFoo);
          oldFoo = newFoo;
      }
  });
  

  Mark : I agree that this is the simplest solution. However, I suggested a custom ComboBoxModel as Kieran says he wants to use the proper Model-Delegate pattern as much as possible. I would say this breaks that pattern by keeping the last selected item outside the model.

• ended up not going to the model at all but getting my object from the getItem method like so:

  public void itemStateChanged(final ItemEvent event) {
      if (event.getStateChange() == event.DESELECTED) {
          deselectedFoo = (Foo) event.getItem();
      } 
      else if (event.getStateChange() == event.SELECTED) {
          FooChangedHandler(deselectedFoo,(Foo) event.getItem());
      }
  }