Question

If I have a method that requires a parameter that,

• Has a Count property
• Has an integer indexer (get-only)

What should the type of this parameter be? I would choose IList<T> before .NET 4.5 since there was no other indexable collection interface for this and arrays implement it, which is a big plus.

But .NET 4.5 introduces the new IReadOnlyList<T> interface and I want my method to support that, too. How can I write this method to support both IList<T> and IReadOnlyList<T> without violating the basic principles like DRY?

Edit: Daniel’s answer gave me some ideas:

public void Foo<T>(IList<T> list)
    => Foo(list, list.Count, (c, i) => c[i]);

public void Foo<T>(IReadOnlyList<T> list)
    => Foo(list, list.Count, (c, i) => c[i]);

private void Foo<TList, TItem>(
    TList list, int count, Func<TList, int, TItem> indexer)
    where TList : IEnumerable<TItem>
{
    // Stuff
}

---

Edit 2: Or I could just accept an IReadOnlyList<T> and provide a helper like this:

public static class CollectionEx
{
    public static IReadOnlyList<T> AsReadOnly<T>(this IList<T> list)
    {
        if (list == null)
            throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(list));

        return list as IReadOnlyList<T> ?? new ReadOnlyWrapper<T>(list);
    }

    private sealed class ReadOnlyWrapper<T> : IReadOnlyList<T>
    {
        private readonly IList<T> _list;

        public ReadOnlyWrapper(IList<T> list) => _list = list;

        public int Count => _list.Count;

        public T this[int index] => _list[index];

        public IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator() => _list.GetEnumerator();

        IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() => GetEnumerator();
    }
}

Then I could call it like Foo(list.AsReadOnly())

---

Edit 3: Arrays implement both IList<T> and IReadOnlyList<T>, so does the List<T> class. This makes it pretty rare to find a class that implements IList<T> but not IReadOnlyList<T>.

Answer 1

You are out of luck here. IList<T> doesn’t implement IReadOnlyList<T>. List<T> does implement both interfaces, but I think that’s not what you want.

However, you can use LINQ:

• The Count() extension method internally checks whether the instance in fact is a collection and then uses the Count property.
• The ElementAt() extension method internally checks whether the instance in fact is a list and than uses the indexer.