How do you get the index of the current iteration

Question

Is there some rare language construct I haven't encountered (like the few I've learned recently, some on Stack Overflow) in C# to get a value representing the current iteration of a foreach loop?

For instance, I currently do something like this depending on the circumstances:

int i=0;
foreach (Object o in collection)
{
    // ...
    i++;
}

Answer 1

Using @FlySwat's answer, I came up with this solution:

//var list = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 }; // Your sample collection

var listEnumerator = list.GetEnumerator(); // Get enumerator

for (var i = 0; listEnumerator.MoveNext() == true; i++)
{
  int currentItem = listEnumerator.Current; // Get current item.
  //Console.WriteLine("At index {0}, item is {1}", i, currentItem); // Do as you wish with i and  currentItem
}

You get the enumerator using GetEnumerator and then you loop using a for loop. However, the trick is to make the loop's condition listEnumerator.MoveNext() == true.

Since the MoveNext method of an enumerator returns true if there is a next element and it can be accessed, making that the loop condition makes the loop stop when we run out of elements to iterate over.

Answer 2

My solution for this problem is an extension method WithIndex(),

http://code.google.com/p/ub-dotnet-utilities/source/browse/trunk/Src/Utilities/Extensions/EnumerableExtensions.cs

Use it like

var list = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 };    

var odd = list.WithIndex().Where(i => (i.Item & 1) == 1);
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new[] { 0, 2, 4 }, odd.Select(i => i.Index));
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new[] { 1, 3, 5 }, odd.Select(i => i.Item));

Answer 3

Literal Answer -- warning, performance may not be as good as just using an int to track the index. At least it is better than using IndexOf.

You just need to use the indexing overload of Select to wrap each item in the collection with an anonymous object that knows the index. This can be done against anything that implements IEnumerable.

System.Collections.IEnumerable collection = Enumerable.Range(100, 10);

foreach (var o in collection.OfType<object>().Select((x, i) => new {x, i}))
{
    Console.WriteLine("{0} {1}", o.i, o.x);
}

Answer 4

You could wrap the original enumerator with another that does contain the index information.

foreach (var item in ForEachHelper.WithIndex(collection))
{
    Console.Write("Index=" + item.Index);
    Console.Write(";Value= " + item.Value);
    Console.Write(";IsLast=" + item.IsLast);
    Console.WriteLine();
}

Here is the code for the ForEachHelper class.

public static class ForEachHelper
{
    public sealed class Item<T>
    {
        public int Index { get; set; }
        public T Value { get; set; }
        public bool IsLast { get; set; }
    }

    public static IEnumerable<Item<T>> WithIndex<T>(IEnumerable<T> enumerable)
    {
        Item<T> item = null;
        foreach (T value in enumerable)
        {
            Item<T> next = new Item<T>();
            next.Index = 0;
            next.Value = value;
            next.IsLast = false;
            if (item != null)
            {
                next.Index = item.Index + 1;
                yield return item;
            }
            item = next;
        }
        if (item != null)
        {
            item.IsLast = true;
            yield return item;
        }            
    }
}

Answer 5

How about something like this? Note that myDelimitedString may be null if myEnumerable is empty.

IEnumerator enumerator = myEnumerable.GetEnumerator();
string myDelimitedString;
string current = null;

if( enumerator.MoveNext() )
    current = (string)enumerator.Current;

while( null != current)
{
    current = (string)enumerator.Current; }

    myDelimitedString += current;

    if( enumerator.MoveNext() )
        myDelimitedString += DELIMITER;
    else
        break;
}

Answer 6

Could do something like this:

public static class ForEachExtensions
{
    public static void ForEachWithIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable, Action<T, int> handler)
    {
        int idx = 0;
        foreach (T item in enumerable)
            handler(item, idx++);
    }
}

public class Example
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        string[] values = new[] { "foo", "bar", "baz" };

        values.ForEachWithIndex((item, idx) => Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", idx, item));
    }
}