Question

I have a List class, and I would like to override GetEnumerator() to return my own Enumerator class. This Enumerator class would have two additional properties that would be updated as the Enumerator is used.

For simplicity (this isn’t the exact business case), let’s say those properties were CurrentIndex and RunningTotal.

I could manage these properties within the foreach loop manually, but I would rather encapsulate this functionality for reuse, and the Enumerator seems to be the right spot.

The problem: foreach hides all the Enumerator business, so is there a way to, within a foreach statement, access the current Enumerator so I can retrieve my properties? Or would I have to foreach, use a nasty old while loop, and manipulate the Enumerator myself?

Answer 1

Strictly speaking, I would say that if you want to do exactly what you’re saying, then yes, you would need to call GetEnumerator and control the enumerator yourself with a while loop.

Without knowing too much about your business requirement, you might be able to take advantage of an iterator function, such as something like this:

    public static IEnumerable<decimal> IgnoreSmallValues(List<decimal> list)
    {
        decimal runningTotal = 0M;
        foreach (decimal value in list)
        {
            // if the value is less than 1% of the running total, then ignore it
            if (runningTotal == 0M || value >= 0.01M * runningTotal)
            {
                runningTotal += value;
                yield return value;
            }
        }
    }

Then you can do this:

        List<decimal> payments = new List<decimal>() {
            123.45M,
            234.56M,
            .01M,
            345.67M,
            1.23M,
            456.78M
        };

        foreach (decimal largePayment in IgnoreSmallValues(payments))
        {
            // handle the large payments so that I can divert all the small payments to my own bank account.  Mwahaha!
        }

---

Updated:

Ok, so here’s a follow-up with what I’ve termed my “fishing hook” solution. Now, let me add a disclaimer that I can’t really think of a good reason to do something this way, but your situation may differ.

The idea is that you simply create a “fishing hook” object (reference type) that you pass to your iterator function. The iterator function manipulates your fishing hook object, and since you still have a reference to it in your code outside, you have visibility into what’s going on:

    public class FishingHook
    {
        public int Index { get; set; }
        public decimal RunningTotal { get; set; }
        public Func<decimal, bool> Criteria { get; set; }
    }

    public static IEnumerable<decimal> FishingHookIteration(IEnumerable<decimal> list, FishingHook hook)
    {
        hook.Index = 0;
        hook.RunningTotal = 0;
        foreach(decimal value in list)
        {
            // the hook object may define a Criteria delegate that
            // determines whether to skip the current value
            if (hook.Criteria == null || hook.Criteria(value))
            {
                hook.RunningTotal += value;
                yield return value;
                hook.Index++;
            }
        }
    }

You would utilize it like this:

        List<decimal> payments = new List<decimal>() {
            123.45M,
            .01M,
            345.67M,
            234.56M,
            1.23M,
            456.78M
        };

        FishingHook hook = new FishingHook();

        decimal min = 0;
        hook.Criteria = x => x > min; // exclude any values that are less than/equal to the defined minimum
        foreach (decimal value in FishingHookIteration(payments, hook))
        {
            // update the minimum
            if (value > min) min = value;

            Console.WriteLine("Index: {0}, Value: {1}, Running Total: {2}", hook.Index, value, hook.RunningTotal);
        }
        // Resultint output is:
        //Index: 0, Value: 123.45, Running Total: 123.45
        //Index: 1, Value: 345.67, Running Total: 469.12
        //Index: 2, Value: 456.78, Running Total: 925.90
        // we've skipped the values .01, 234.56, and 1.23

Essentially, the FishingHook object gives you some control over how the iterator executes. The impression I got from the question was that you needed some way to access the inner workings of the iterator so that you could manipulate how it iterates while you are in the middle of iterating, but if this is not the case, then this solution might be overkill for what you need.