Question

I have an IEnumerable<string> which I would like to split into groups of three so if my input had 6 items i would get a IEnumerable<IEnumerable<string>> returned with two items each of which would contain an IEnumerable<string> which my string contents in it.

I am looking for how to do this with Linq rather than a simple for loop

Thanks

Answer 1

var result = sequence.Select((s, i) => new { Value = s, Index = i })
                     .GroupBy(item => item.Index / 3, item => item.Value);

Note that this will return an IEnumerable<IGrouping<int,string>> which will be functionally similar to what you want. However, if you strictly need to type it as IEnumerable<IEnumerable<string>> (to pass to a method that expects it in C# 3.0 which doesn’t support generics variance,) you should use Enumerable.Cast:

var result = sequence.Select((s, i) => new { Value = s, Index = i })
                     .GroupBy(item => item.Index / 3, item => item.Value)
                     .Cast<IEnumerable<string>>();