Question

I’m wondering if there is built-in .NET functionality to change each value in an array based on the result of a provided delegate. For example, if I had an array {1,2,3} and a delegate that returns the square of each value, I would like to be able to run a method that takes the array and delegate, and returns {1,4,9}. Does anything like this exist already?

Answer 1

Not that I’m aware of (replacing each element rather than converting to a new array or sequence), but it’s incredibly easy to write:

public static void ConvertInPlace<T>(this IList<T> source, Func<T, T> projection)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < source.Count; i++)
    {
        source[i] = projection(source[i]);
    }
}

Use:

int[] values = { 1, 2, 3 };
values.ConvertInPlace(x => x * x);

Of course if you don’t really need to change the existing array, the other answers posted using Select would be more functional. Or the existing ConvertAll method from .NET 2:

int[] values = { 1, 2, 3 };
values = Array.ConvertAll(values, x => x * x);

This is all assuming a single-dimensional array. If you want to include rectangular arrays, it gets trickier, particularly if you want to avoid boxing.