Can anyone explain IEnumerable and IEnumerator to

Question

Can anyone explain IEnumerable and IEnumerator to me?

for example, when to use it over foreach? what's the difference between IEnumerable and IEnumerator? Why do we need to use it?

Answer 1

Differences between IEnumerable and IEnumerator :

• IEnumerable uses IEnumerator internally.
• IEnumerable doesnt know which item/object is executing.
• Whenever we pass IEnumerator to another function ,it knows the current position of item/object.

• Whenever we pass IEnumerable collection to another function ,it doesn't know the current position of item/object(doesn't know which item its executing)

  IEnumerable have one method GetEnumerator()

public interface IEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable
{
IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator();
}

IEnumerator have one Property current and two methods Reset and MoveNext(Which is useful for knowing the current position of an item in a list).

public interface IEnumerator
{
     object Current { get; }
     bool MoveNext();
     void Reset();
}

Answer 2

IEnumerable and IEnumerator (and their generic counterparts IEnumerable<T> and IEnumerator<T>) are base interfaces of iterator implementations in .Net Framework Class Libray collections.

IEnumerable is the most common interface you would see in the majority of the code out there. It enables the foreach loop, generators (think yield) and because of its tiny interface, it's used to create tight abstractions. IEnumerable depends on IEnumerator.

IEnumerator, on the other hand, provides a slightly lower level iteration interface. It's referred to as the explicit iterator which gives the programmer more control over the iteration cycle.

IEnumerable

IEnumerable is a standard interface that enables iterating over collections that supports it (in fact, all collection types I can think of today implements IEnumerable). Compiler support allows language features like foreach. In general terms, it enables this implicit iterator implementation.

foreach Loop

foreach (var value in list)
  Console.WriteLine(value);

I think foreach loop is one of the main reasons for using IEnumerable interfaces. foreach has a very succinct syntax and very easy to understand compared to classic C style for loops where you need to check the various variables to see what it was doing.

yield Keyword

Probably a lesser known feature is that IEnumerable also enables generators in C# with the use of yield return and yield break statements.

IEnumerable<Thing> GetThings() {
   if (isNotReady) yield break;
   while (thereIsMore)
     yield return GetOneMoreThing();
}

Abstractions

Another common scenario in practice is using IEnumerable to provide minimalistic abstractions. Because it is a minuscule and read-only interface, you are encouraged to expose your collections as IEnumerable (rather than List for example). That way you are free to change your implementation without breaking your client's code (change List to a LinkedList for instance).

Gotcha

One behaviour to be aware of is that in streaming implementations (e.g. retrieving data row by row from a database, instead of loading all the results in memory first) you cannot iterate over the collection more than once. This is in contrast to in-memory collections like List, where you can iterate multiple times without problems. ReSharper, for example, has a code inspection for Possible multiple enumeration of IEnumerable.

IEnumerator

IEnumerator, on the other hand, is the behind the scenes interface which makes IEnumerble-foreach-magic work. Strictly speaking, it enables explicit iterators.

var iter = list.GetEnumerator();
while (iter.MoveNext())
    Console.WriteLine(iter.Current);

In my experience IEnumerator is rarely used in common scenarios due to its more verbose syntax and slightly confusing semantics (at least to me; e.g. MoveNext() returns a value as well, which the name doesn't suggest at all).

Use case for IEnumerator

I only used IEnumerator in particular (slightly lower level) libraries and frameworks where I was providing IEnumerable interfaces. One example is a data stream processing library which provided series of objects in a foreach loop even though behind the scenes data was collected using various file streams and serialisations.

Client code

foreach(var item in feed.GetItems())
    Console.WriteLine(item);

Library

IEnumerable GetItems() {
    return new FeedIterator(_fileNames)
}

class FeedIterator: IEnumerable {
    IEnumerator GetEnumerator() {
        return new FeedExplicitIterator(_stream);
    }
}

class FeedExplicitIterator: IEnumerator {
    DataItem _current;

    bool MoveNext() {
        _current = ReadMoreFromStream();
        return _current != null;           
    }

    DataItem Current() {
        return _current;   
    }
}

Answer 3

I have noticed these differences:

A. We iterate the list in different way, foreach can be used for IEnumerable and while loop for IEnumerator.

B. IEnumerator can remember the current index when we pass from one method to another (it start working with current index) but IEnumerable can't remember the index and it reset the index to beginning. More in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd3yUjGc9M0

Answer 4

Implementing IEnumerable means your class returns an IEnumerator object:

public class People : IEnumerable
{
    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        // return a PeopleEnumerator
    }
}

Implementing IEnumerator means your class returns the methods and properties for iteration:

public class PeopleEnumerator : IEnumerator
{
    public void Reset()...

    public bool MoveNext()...

    public object Current...
}

That's the difference anyway.

Answer 5

A Minor contribution.

As many of them explain about 'when to use' and 'use with foreach'. I thought of adding Another States Difference here as requested in question about the difference between both IEnumerable an IEnumerator.

I created the below code sample based on the below discussion threads.

IEnumerable , IEnumerator vs foreach, when to use what What is the difference between IEnumerator and IEnumerable?

Enumerator preserves the state (iteration position) between function calls while iterations the other hand Enumerable does not.

Here is the tested example with comments to understand.

Experts please add/correct me.

static void EnumerableVsEnumeratorStateTest()
{
    IList<int> numList = new List<int>();

    numList.Add(1);
    numList.Add(2);
    numList.Add(3);
    numList.Add(4);
    numList.Add(5);
    numList.Add(6);

    Console.WriteLine("Using Enumerator - Remembers the state");
    IterateFrom1to3(numList.GetEnumerator());

    Console.WriteLine("Using Enumerable - Does not Remembers the state");
    IterateFrom1to3Eb(numList);

    Console.WriteLine("Using Enumerable - 2nd functions start from the item 1 in the collection");
}

static void IterateFrom1to3(IEnumerator<int> numColl)
{
    while (numColl.MoveNext())
    {
        Console.WriteLine(numColl.Current.ToString());

        if (numColl.Current > 3)
        {
            // This method called 3 times for 3 items (4,5,6) in the collection. 
            // It remembers the state and displays the continued values.
            IterateFrom3to6(numColl);
        }
    }
}

static void IterateFrom3to6(IEnumerator<int> numColl)
{
    while (numColl.MoveNext())
    {
        Console.WriteLine(numColl.Current.ToString());
    }
}

static void IterateFrom1to3Eb(IEnumerable<int> numColl)
{
    foreach (int num in numColl)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(num.ToString());

        if (num>= 5)
        {
            // The below method invokes for the last 2 items.
            //Since it doesnot persists the state it will displays entire collection 2 times.
            IterateFrom3to6Eb(numColl);
        }
    }
}

static void IterateFrom3to6Eb(IEnumerable<int> numColl)
{
    Console.WriteLine();
    foreach (int num in numColl)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(num.ToString());
    }
}

Answer 6

The IEnumerable and IEnumerator Interfaces

To begin examining the process of implementing existing .NET interfaces, let’s first look at the role of IEnumerable and IEnumerator. Recall that C# supports a keyword named foreach that allows you to iterate over the contents of any array type:

// Iterate over an array of items.
int[] myArrayOfInts = {10, 20, 30, 40};
foreach(int i in myArrayOfInts)
{
   Console.WriteLine(i);
}

While it might seem that only array types can make use of this construct, the truth of the matter is any type supporting a method named GetEnumerator() can be evaluated by the foreach construct.To illustrate, follow me!

Suppose we have a Garage class:

// Garage contains a set of Car objects.
public class Garage
{
   private Car[] carArray = new Car[4];
   // Fill with some Car objects upon startup.
   public Garage()
   {
      carArray[0] = new Car("Rusty", 30);
      carArray[1] = new Car("Clunker", 55);
      carArray[2] = new Car("Zippy", 30);
      carArray[3] = new Car("Fred", 30);
   }
}

Ideally, it would be convenient to iterate over the Garage object’s subitems using the foreach construct, just like an array of data values:

// This seems reasonable ...
public class Program
{
   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      Console.WriteLine("***** Fun with IEnumerable / IEnumerator *****\n");
      Garage carLot = new Garage();
      // Hand over each car in the collection?
      foreach (Car c in carLot)
      {
         Console.WriteLine("{0} is going {1} MPH",
         c.PetName, c.CurrentSpeed);
      }
      Console.ReadLine();
   }
}

Sadly, the compiler informs you that the Garage class does not implement a method named GetEnumerator(). This method is formalized by the IEnumerable interface, which is found lurking within the System.Collections namespace. Classes or structures that support this behavior advertise that they are able to expose contained subitems to the caller (in this example, the foreach keyword itself). Here is the definition of this standard .NET interface:

// This interface informs the caller
// that the object's subitems can be enumerated.
public interface IEnumerable
{
   IEnumerator GetEnumerator();
}

As you can see, the GetEnumerator() method returns a reference to yet another interface named System.Collections.IEnumerator. This interface provides the infrastructure to allow the caller to traverse the internal objects contained by the IEnumerable-compatible container:

// This interface allows the caller to
// obtain a container's subitems.
public interface IEnumerator
{
   bool MoveNext (); // Advance the internal position of the cursor.
   object Current { get;} // Get the current item (read-only property).
   void Reset (); // Reset the cursor before the first member.
}

If you want to update the Garage type to support these interfaces, you could take the long road and implement each method manually. While you are certainly free to provide customized versions of GetEnumerator(), MoveNext(), Current, and Reset(), there is a simpler way. As the System.Array type (as well as many other collection classes) already implements IEnumerable and IEnumerator, you can simply delegate the request to the System.Array as follows:

using System.Collections;
...
public class Garage : IEnumerable
{
   // System.Array already implements IEnumerator!
   private Car[] carArray = new Car[4];
   public Garage()
   {
      carArray[0] = new Car("FeeFee", 200);
      carArray[1] = new Car("Clunker", 90);
      carArray[2] = new Car("Zippy", 30);
      carArray[3] = new Car("Fred", 30);
   }
   public IEnumerator GetEnumerator()
   {
      // Return the array object's IEnumerator.
      return carArray.GetEnumerator();
   }
}

After you have updated your Garage type, you can safely use the type within the C# foreach construct. Furthermore, given that the GetEnumerator() method has been defined publicly, the object user could also interact with the IEnumerator type:

// Manually work with IEnumerator.
IEnumerator i = carLot.GetEnumerator();
i.MoveNext();
Car myCar = (Car)i.Current;
Console.WriteLine("{0} is going {1} MPH", myCar.PetName, myCar.CurrentSpeed);

However, if you prefer to hide the functionality of IEnumerable from the object level, simply make use of explicit interface implementation:

IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
{
  // Return the array object's IEnumerator.
  return carArray.GetEnumerator();
}

By doing so, the casual object user will not find the Garage’s GetEnumerator() method, while the foreach construct will obtain the interface in the background when necessary.

Adapted from the Pro C# 5.0 and the .NET 4.5 Framework