Update all objects in a collection using LINQ

Question

Is there a way to do the following using LINQ?

foreach (var c in collection)
{
    c.PropertyToSet = value;
}

To clarify, I want to iterate through each object in a collection and then update a property on each object.

My use case is I have a bunch of comments on a blog post, and I want to iterate through each comment on a blog post and set the datetime on the blog post to be +10 hours. I could do it in SQL, but I want to keep it in the business layer.

Answer 1

There is no built-in extension method to do this. Although defining one is fairly straight forward. At the bottom of the post is a method I defined called Iterate. It can be used like so

collection.Iterate(c => { c.PropertyToSet = value;} );

Iterate Source

public static void Iterate<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable, Action<T> callback)
{
    if (enumerable == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("enumerable");
    }

    IterateHelper(enumerable, (x, i) => callback(x));
}

public static void Iterate<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable, Action<T,int> callback)
{
    if (enumerable == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("enumerable");
    }

    IterateHelper(enumerable, callback);
}

private static void IterateHelper<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable, Action<T,int> callback)
{
    int count = 0;
    foreach (var cur in enumerable)
    {
        callback(cur, count);
        count++;
    }
}

Answer 2

No, LINQ doesn't support a manner of mass updating. The only shorter way would be to use a ForEach extension method - Why there is no ForEach extension method on IEnumerable?

Answer 3

Use:

ListOfStuff.Where(w => w.Thing == value).ToList().ForEach(f => f.OtherThing = vauleForNewOtherThing);

I am not sure if this is overusing LINQ or not, but it has worked for me when wanting to update a specific items in the list for a specific condition.

Answer 4

I wrote some extension methods to help me out with that.

namespace System.Linq
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Class to hold extension methods to Linq.
    /// </summary>
    public static class LinqExtensions
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Changes all elements of IEnumerable by the change function
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="enumerable">The enumerable where you want to change stuff</param>
        /// <param name="change">The way you want to change the stuff</param>
        /// <returns>An IEnumerable with all changes applied</returns>
        public static IEnumerable<T> Change<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable, Func<T, T> change  )
        {
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(enumerable, "enumerable");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(change, "change");

            foreach (var item in enumerable)
            {
                yield return change(item);
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Changes all elements of IEnumerable by the change function, that fullfill the where function
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="enumerable">The enumerable where you want to change stuff</param>
        /// <param name="change">The way you want to change the stuff</param>
        /// <param name="where">The function to check where changes should be made</param>
        /// <returns>
        /// An IEnumerable with all changes applied
        /// </returns>
        public static IEnumerable<T> ChangeWhere<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable, 
                                                    Func<T, T> change,
                                                    Func<T, bool> @where)
        {
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(enumerable, "enumerable");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(change, "change");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(@where, "where");

            foreach (var item in enumerable)
            {
                if (@where(item))
                {
                    yield return change(item);
                }
                else
                {
                    yield return item;
                }
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Changes all elements of IEnumerable by the change function that do not fullfill the except function
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="enumerable">The enumerable where you want to change stuff</param>
        /// <param name="change">The way you want to change the stuff</param>
        /// <param name="where">The function to check where changes should not be made</param>
        /// <returns>
        /// An IEnumerable with all changes applied
        /// </returns>
        public static IEnumerable<T> ChangeExcept<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable,
                                                     Func<T, T> change,
                                                     Func<T, bool> @where)
        {
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(enumerable, "enumerable");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(change, "change");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(@where, "where");

            foreach (var item in enumerable)
            {
                if (!@where(item))
                {
                    yield return change(item);
                }
                else
                {
                    yield return item;
                }
            }
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Update all elements of IEnumerable by the update function (only works with reference types)
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="enumerable">The enumerable where you want to change stuff</param>
        /// <param name="update">The way you want to change the stuff</param>
        /// <returns>
        /// The same enumerable you passed in
        /// </returns>
        public static IEnumerable<T> Update<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable,
                                               Action<T> update) where T : class
        {
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(enumerable, "enumerable");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(update, "update");
            foreach (var item in enumerable)
            {
                update(item);
            }
            return enumerable;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Update all elements of IEnumerable by the update function (only works with reference types)
        /// where the where function returns true
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="enumerable">The enumerable where you want to change stuff</param>
        /// <param name="update">The way you want to change the stuff</param>
        /// <param name="where">The function to check where updates should be made</param>
        /// <returns>
        /// The same enumerable you passed in
        /// </returns>
        public static IEnumerable<T> UpdateWhere<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable,
                                               Action<T> update, Func<T, bool> where) where T : class
        {
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(enumerable, "enumerable");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(update, "update");
            foreach (var item in enumerable)
            {
                if (where(item))
                {
                    update(item);
                }
            }
            return enumerable;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Update all elements of IEnumerable by the update function (only works with reference types)
        /// Except the elements from the where function
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="enumerable">The enumerable where you want to change stuff</param>
        /// <param name="update">The way you want to change the stuff</param>
        /// <param name="where">The function to check where changes should not be made</param>
        /// <returns>
        /// The same enumerable you passed in
        /// </returns>
        public static IEnumerable<T> UpdateExcept<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable,
                                               Action<T> update, Func<T, bool> where) where T : class
        {
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(enumerable, "enumerable");
            ArgumentCheck.IsNullorWhiteSpace(update, "update");

            foreach (var item in enumerable)
            {
                if (!where(item))
                {
                    update(item);
                }
            }
            return enumerable;
        }
    }
}

I am using it like this:

        List<int> exampleList = new List<int>()
            {
                1, 2 , 3
            };

        //2 , 3 , 4
        var updated1 = exampleList.Change(x => x + 1);

        //10, 2, 3
        var updated2 = exampleList
            .ChangeWhere(   changeItem => changeItem * 10,          // change you want to make
                            conditionItem => conditionItem < 2);    // where you want to make the change

        //1, 0, 0
        var updated3 = exampleList
            .ChangeExcept(changeItem => 0,                          //Change elements to 0
                          conditionItem => conditionItem == 1);     //everywhere but where element is 1

For reference the argument check:

/// <summary>
/// Class for doing argument checks
/// </summary>
public static class ArgumentCheck
{


    /// <summary>
    /// Checks if a value is string or any other object if it is string
    /// it checks for nullorwhitespace otherwhise it checks for null only
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T">Type of the item you want to check</typeparam>
    /// <param name="item">The item you want to check</param>
    /// <param name="nameOfTheArgument">Name of the argument</param>
    public static void IsNullorWhiteSpace<T>(T item, string nameOfTheArgument = "")
    {

        Type type = typeof(T);
        if (type == typeof(string) ||
            type == typeof(String))
        {
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(item as string))
            {
                throw new ArgumentException(nameOfTheArgument + " is null or Whitespace");
            }
        }
        else
        {
            if (item == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentException(nameOfTheArgument + " is null");
            }
        }

    }
}

Answer 5

I actually found an extension method that will do what I want nicely

public static IEnumerable<T> ForEach<T>(
    this IEnumerable<T> source,
    Action<T> act)
{
    foreach (T element in source) act(element);
    return source;
}

Answer 6

I've tried a few variations on this, and I keep going back to this guy's solution.

http://www.hookedonlinq.com/UpdateOperator.ashx

Again, this is somebody else's solution. But I've compiled the code into a small library, and use it fairly regularly.

I'm going to paste his code here, for the off chance that his site(blog) ceases to exist at some point in the future. (There's nothing worse than seeing a post that says "Here is the exact answer you need", Click, and Dead URL.)

    public static class UpdateExtensions {

    public delegate void Func<TArg0>(TArg0 element);

    /// <summary>
    /// Executes an Update statement block on all elements in an IEnumerable<T> sequence.
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="TSource">The source element type.</typeparam>
    /// <param name="source">The source sequence.</param>
    /// <param name="update">The update statement to execute for each element.</param>
    /// <returns>The numer of records affected.</returns>
    public static int Update<TSource>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource> update)
    {
        if (source == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
        if (update == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("update");
        if (typeof(TSource).IsValueType)
            throw new NotSupportedException("value type elements are not supported by update.");

        int count = 0;
        foreach (TSource element in source)
        {
            update(element);
            count++;
        }
        return count;
    }
}



int count = drawingObjects
        .Where(d => d.IsSelected && d.Color == Colors.Blue)
        .Update(e => { e.Color = Color.Red; e.Selected = false; } );