Question

is there a way in .NET (or some sort of standard extension methods) to ask questions of an enumeration?

For example is the current item the first or last item in the enumeration:

string s = "";

foreach (var person in PeopleListEnumerator) {

  if (PeopleListEnumerator.IsFirstItem) s += "[";

  s += person.ToString();

  if (!PeopleListEnumerator.IsLastItem) s += ",";
  else s += "]";
}

Answer 1

Just for the sake of fun, a solution to the general problem that doesn’t require eager evaluation and has a single local variable (except the enumerator):

static class TaggedEnumerableExtensions
{
    public class TaggedItem<T>
    {
        public TaggedItem(T value, bool isFirst, bool isLast)
        {
            IsFirst = isFirst;
            IsLast = isLast;
            Value = value;
        }
        public T Value { get; private set; }
        public bool IsFirst { get; private set; }
        public bool IsLast { get; private set; }
    }
    public static IEnumerable<TaggedItem<T>> ToTaggedEnumerable<T>(this IEnumerable<T> e)
    {
        using (var enumerator = e.GetEnumerator()) {
            if (!enumerator.MoveNext())
                yield break;
            var current = enumerator.Current;
            if (!enumerator.MoveNext()) {
                yield return new TaggedItem<T>(current, true, true);
                yield break;
            } else {
                yield return new TaggedItem<T>(current, true, false);
            }

            for (;;) {
                current = enumerator.Current;
                if (!enumerator.MoveNext()) {
                    yield return new TaggedItem<T>(current, false, true);
                    yield break;
                }
                yield return new TaggedItem<T>(current, false, false);
            }
        }
    }
}

Test:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        foreach (var item in Enumerable.Range(0, 10).ToTaggedEnumerable()) {
            Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} {2}", item.IsFirst, item.IsLast, item.Value);
        }
    }
}