Question

I know how to implement the non generic IEnumerable, like this:

using System;
using System.Collections;

namespace ConsoleApplication33
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            MyObjects myObjects = new MyObjects();
            myObjects[0] = new MyObject() { Foo = "Hello", Bar = 1 };
            myObjects[1] = new MyObject() { Foo = "World", Bar = 2 };

            foreach (MyObject x in myObjects)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(x.Foo);
                Console.WriteLine(x.Bar);
            }

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    class MyObject
    {
        public string Foo { get; set; }
        public int Bar { get; set; }
    }

    class MyObjects : IEnumerable
    {
        ArrayList mylist = new ArrayList();

        public MyObject this[int index]
        {
            get { return (MyObject)mylist[index]; }
            set { mylist.Insert(index, value); }
        }

        IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
        {
            return mylist.GetEnumerator();
        }
    }
}

However I also notice that IEnumerable has a generic version, IEnumerable<T>, but I can’t figure out how to implement it.

If I add using System.Collections.Generic; to my using directives, and then change:

class MyObjects : IEnumerable

to:

class MyObjects : IEnumerable<MyObject>

And then right click on IEnumerable<MyObject> and select Implement Interface => Implement Interface, Visual Studio helpfully adds the following block of code:

IEnumerator<MyObject> IEnumerable<MyObject>.GetEnumerator()
{
    throw new NotImplementedException();
}

Returning the non generic IEnumerable object from the GetEnumerator(); method doesn’t work this time, so what do I put here? The CLI now ignores the non generic implementation and heads straight for the generic version when it tries to enumerate through my array during the foreach loop.

Answer 1

If you choose to use a generic collection, such as List<MyObject> instead of ArrayList, you’ll find that the List<MyObject> will provide both generic and non-generic enumerators that you can use.

using System.Collections;

class MyObjects : IEnumerable<MyObject>
{
    List<MyObject> mylist = new List<MyObject>();

    public MyObject this[int index]  
    {  
        get { return mylist[index]; }  
        set { mylist.Insert(index, value); }  
    } 

    public IEnumerator<MyObject> GetEnumerator()
    {
        return mylist.GetEnumerator();
    }

    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return this.GetEnumerator();
    }
}