Question

Is there a way to write this code more elegantly with a foreach loop? The “create a new entry” logic is thwarting me, because it needs to execute even if pendingEntries contains no items.

ItemDto itemToAdd; // an input parameter to the method
IEnumerator<Item> pendingEntries = existingPendingItems.GetEnumerator();
pendingEntries.MoveNext();
do // foreach entry
{
  Item entry = pendingEntries.Current;
  if (entry != null) // fold the itemToAdd into the existing entry
  {
    entry.Quantity += itemToAdd.Quantity; // amongst other things
  }
  else // create a new entry
  {
    entry = Mapper.Map<ItemDto, Item>(itemToAdd);
  }
  Save(entry);
} while (pendingEntries.MoveNext());

Answer 1

foreach (Item entry in existingPendingItems.DefaultIfEmpty())
{
    Item entryToSave;

    if (entry != null) // fold the itemToAdd into the existing entry
    {
        entry.Quantity += itemToAdd.Quantity; // amongst other things

        entryToSave = entry;
    }
    else // create a new entry
    {
        entryToSave = Mapper.Map<ItemDto, Item>(itemToAdd);
    }

    Save(entryToSave);
}

The key is the Enumerable.DefaultIfEmpty() call — this will return a sequence with a default (Item) item if the sequence is empty. This will be null for a reference type.

Edit: fixed bug mentioned by neotapir.