Enumerator over a sublist (linked list) - c#

I am trying to make an enumerator that iterates over a sublist within a linked list. To do this, I'm explicitly keeping track of the two nodes Head and Tail that bound the sublist. My goal is to be able to call a foreach loop over the linked list, to iterate over all the elements of the sublist.
What foreach wants to do:
The foreach loop first initializes an enumerator, in my case with the required list list and a variable linked list node node from which it will ask the Value during the loop.
Once the loop has been initialized, it repeats the following pattern:
Call the MoveNext() method, which 'increments' the list
Retrieve Current and return it to wherever it's called
Repeat until MoveNext() == false.
How I've currently written my enumerator
Since the first step is to move, rather than to return a value, I figured I could initialize my enumerator like this:
this.list = list;
this.node = list.Head.Previous // Initialize node to be the element before Head
Where Head is the first element of the sublist to be shown.
Then, I tried to implement the logic for MoveNext() and Current like this:
public T Current => node.Value;
object IEnumerator.Current => Current;
public bool MoveNext()
{
node = node.Next;
return node != list.Tail.Next;
}
Where Tail is the last element of the sublist to be shown.
But in some cases, because this implementation of a linked list is circular, list.Tail.Next can be list.Head, meaning that MoveNext() will return false without even getting the chance to return a single value.
Is there a way to refactor the enumerator to make sure it iterates over the entire sublist instead of just short-circuiting, both when list.Tail.Next does and doesn't point to list.Head?

From your description, there seems to be no cases where the first call to MoveNext would return false.
You could just add an extra piece of state called Moved:
private bool Moved { get; set; } = false;
public bool MoveNext()
{
node = node.Next;
var retVal = !Moved || node != list.Tail.Next;
Moved = true;
return retVal;
}
An extra state is definitely needed here, because if you only have one element, we have no way to tell whether we have iterated over it or not, as node = node.Next does not change the state of the enumerator.

Did you try:
public bool MoveNext()
{
bool returnValue = node != list.Tail;
node = node.Next;
return returnValue;
}

Related

Any benefit to loop with nested condition in the ReSharper way?

When using a foreach loop with a nested condition inside, I ever write in the following way:
foreach (RadioButton item in listOfRadioButtons)
{
if (item.IsChecked == true)
{
// sometging
}
}
But I've installed ReSharper and it suggests to change this loop to the following form (removing the if and using a lambda):
foreach (RadioButton item in listOfRadioButtons.Where(item => item.IsChecked == true))
{
// something
}
In my experience, the ReSharper way will loop two times: one to generate the filtered IEnumerable, and after to loop the results of the .Where query again.
I am correct? If so, why is ReSharper suggesting this? Because in my opinion, the first is also more reliable.
Note: The default IsChecked property of the WPF RadioButton is a Nullable bool, so it's need a == true, a .Value, or a cast to bool inside a condition to return bool.
In my experience, the ReSharper way will loop two times: one to
generate the filtered IEnumerable, and after to loop the results of
the .Where query again.
Nope, it will loop only once. Where does not loop your collection - it only creates iterator which will be used to enumerate your collection. Here is how LINQ solution looks like:
using(var iterator = listOfRadioButtons.Where(rb => rb.IsChecked == true))
{
while(iterator.MoveNext())
{
RadioButton item = iterator.Current;
// something
}
}
Your original code is better for performance - you will avoid creating delegate and passing it to instance of WhereEnumerableIterator, and then executing delegate for each item in source sequence. But you should note, as #dcastro pointed, difference will be really small and does not worth noting until you will have to optimize this particular loop.
Solution suggested by ReSharper is (maybe) better for readability. I personally like simple if condition in a loop.
UPDATE: Where iterator can be simplified to (also some interfaces are omitted)
public class WhereEnumerableIterator<T> : IEnumerable<T>, IDisposable
{
private IEnumerator<T> _enumerator;
private Func<T,bool> _predicate;
public WhereEnumerableIterator(IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T,bool> predicate)
{
_predicate = predicate;
_enumerator = source.GetEnumerator();
}
public bool MoveNext()
{
while (_enumerator.MoveNext())
{
if (_predicate(_enumerator.Current))
{
Current = _enumerator.Current;
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
public T Current { get; private set; }
public void Dispose()
{
if (_enumerator != null)
_enumerator.Dispose();
}
}
Main idea here - it enumerates original source only when you ask it to move to next item. Then iterator goes to next item in original source and checks if it matches predicate. If match found, then it returns current item and puts enumerating source on hold.
So, until you will not ask items from this iterator, it will not enumerate source. If you will call ToList() on this iterator, it will enumerate source sequence and return all matched items, which will be saved to new list.

Check if IEnumerable has ANY rows without enumerating over the entire list

I have the following method which returns an IEnumerable of type T. The implementation of the method is not important, apart from the yield return to lazy load the IEnumerable. This is necessary as the result could have millions of items.
public IEnumerable<T> Parse()
{
foreach(...)
{
yield return parsedObject;
}
}
Problem:
I have the following property which can be used to determine if the IEnumerable will have any items:
public bool HasItems
{
get
{
return Parse().Take(1).SingleOrDefault() != null;
}
}
Is there perhaps a better way to do this?
IEnumerable.Any() will return true if there are any elements in the sequence and false if there are no elements in the sequence. This method will not iterate the entire sequence (only maximum one element) since it will return true if it makes it past the first element and false if it does not.
Similar to Howto: Count the items from a IEnumerable<T> without iterating? an Enumerable is meant to be a lazy, read-forward "list", and like quantum mechanics the act of investigating it alters its state.
See confirmation: https://dotnetfiddle.net/GPMVXH
var sideeffect = 0;
var enumerable = Enumerable.Range(1, 10).Select(i => {
// show how many times it happens
sideeffect++;
return i;
});
// will 'enumerate' one item!
if(enumerable.Any()) Console.WriteLine("There are items in the list; sideeffect={0}", sideeffect);
enumerable.Any() is the cleanest way to check if there are any items in the list. You could try casting to something not lazy, like if(null != (list = enumerable as ICollection<T>) && list.Any()) return true.
Or, your scenario may permit using an Enumerator and making a preliminary check before enumerating:
var e = enumerable.GetEnumerator();
// check first
if(!e.MoveNext()) return;
// do some stuff, then enumerate the list
do {
actOn(e.Current); // do stuff with the current item
} while(e.MoveNext()); // stop when we don't have anything else
The best way to answer this question, and to clear all doubts, is to see what the 'Any' function does.
public static bool Any<TSource>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source) {
if (source == null) throw Error.ArgumentNull("source");
using (IEnumerator<TSource> e = source.GetEnumerator()) {
if (e.MoveNext()) return true;
}
return false;
}
https://github.com/microsoft/referencesource/blob/master/System.Core/System/Linq/Enumerable.cs

Recursive Iterators

I am having some trouble making an iterator that can traverse the following type of data structure.
I have a class called Expression, which has one data member, a List<object>.
This list can have any number of children, and some of those children might be other Expression objects.
I want to traverse this structure, and print out every non-list object (but I do want to print out the elements of the list of course), but before entering a list, I want to return "begin nest" and after I just exited a list, I want to return "end nest".
I was able to do this if I ignored the class wherever possible, and just had List<object> objects with List<object> items if I wanted a subExpression, but I would rather do away with this, and instead have an Expressions as the sublists (it would make it easier to do operations on the object. I am aware that I could use extension methods on the List<object> but it would not be appropriate (who wants an Evaluate method on their list that takes no arguments?).
The code that I used to generate the origonal iterator (that works) is:
public IEnumerator GetEnumerator(){
return theIterator(expr).GetEnumerator();
}
private IEnumerable theIterator(object root) {
if ((root is List<object>)){
yield return " begin nest ";
foreach (var item in (List<object>)root){
foreach (var item2 in theIterator(item)){
yield return item2;
}
}
yield return " end nest ";
}
else
yield return root;
}
A type swap of List<object> for expression did not work, and lead to a stackOverflow error. How should the iterator be implemented?
Update: Here is the swapped code:
public IEnumerator GetEnumerator() {
return this.GetEnumerator();
}
private IEnumerable theIterator(object root) {
if ((root is Expression)) {
yield return " begin nest ";
foreach (var item in (Expression)root) {
foreach (var item2 in theIterator(item))
yield return item2;
}
yield return " end nest ";
}
else
yield return root;
}
The reason you are getting a StackOverflowException is that
foreach (var item in (Expression)root)
…internally causes:
((Expression)root).GetEnumerator()
…to be invoked – that is the way that the CLR enumerates the objects that must be assigned to the item variable during each iteration of the foreach loop.
In your case, the GetEnumerator() invocation would cause theIterator to be executed again for the same root, thereby entering an infinite recursion.
To fix your problem, you need to replace:
foreach (var item in (Expression)root)
…with:
foreach (var item in ((Expression)root).expr)
…where expr is the name of the List<object> property.
Why did you change GetEnumerator() to return this.GetEnumerator()?
It seems to me that's where your stack overflow is coming from.
Try making it return theIterator(this).GetEnumerator()?

Question on binary search tree

I am looking at the following code: http://netrsc.blogspot.com/2010/04/net-c-binary-tree.html
Am I right in thinking that the while (!Found) condition will iterate the tree?
protected void Insert(T item)
{
TreeNode<T> TempNode = Root;
bool Found=false;
while (!Found)
{
int ComparedValue = TempNode.Value.CompareTo(item);
if(ComparedValue<0)
{
if(TempNode.Left==null)
{
TempNode.Left=new TreeNode<T>(item,TempNode);
++NumberOfNodes;
return;
}
else
{
TempNode=TempNode.Left;
}
}
else if(ComparedValue>0)
{
if(TempNode.Right==null)
{
TempNode.Right=new TreeNode<T>(item,TempNode);
++NumberOfNodes;
return;
}
else
{
TempNode=TempNode.Right;
}
}
else
{
TempNode=TempNode.Right;
}
}
}
Also, for the find and traversal methods, how do these work? If nothing is returned from the Traversal method but from the left branch, would the loop in Find execute again? How would it know to execute down the right branch?
protected IEnumerable<TreeNode<T>> Traversal(TreeNode<T> Node)
{
if (Node.Left != null)
{
foreach (TreeNode<T> LeftNode in Traversal(Node.Left))
yield return LeftNode;
}
yield return Node;
if (Node.Right != null)
{
foreach (TreeNode<T> RightNode in Traversal(Node.Right))
yield return RightNode;
}
}
Thanks
An example of iterating the tree is in the Find command, which calls the Traversal function.
foreach (TreeNode<T> Item in Traversal(Root))
The Traversal function will iteratively return the items in the tree in a depth-first, left-to-right manner. If you look at the Traversal code, it calls itself recursively on the left side and then recursively on the right.
Traversal returns the entire tree in an iterable object, where the items are ordered depth-first, left-to-right. The Find command simply loops through each one and when it hits a match returns it breaking out of the loop. Basically, Traversal returns an ordered iterable of items, Find goes through that list looking for a match. Find really doesn't even have to know whether it's searching through a list or a tree or whatever. It just needs something to iterate through to find a match.
Not necessarily. It will only iterate through the nodes on the path of where the inserted node should be added. There are some return statements sprinkled in that loop so it will essentially stop when it find's the correct location and adds the new node. It would have been more appropriate (in the code) to set the Found variable to true instead.
The traversal methods return the nodes of both the left and right subtrees. You should note that it uses yield return and not the plain return. Using it creates an enumerator where each item that is yielded is what the numerator would return as you iterate through it. Think of it as pausing execution when it reaches a yield return statement. When iterating to the next value from the calling code, execution is continued at that point potentially returning more values.
Find will take the results of the traversal and returns the stored value if found in one of the nodes.

LinkedList<T> (2.0): removing items iteratively

I need to iterate through a LinkedList<T> (in .NET 2.0) and remove all the items according to a given criteria.
It was easy way under Java, since I could do the following:
Iterator<E> i = list.iterator();
while (i.hasNext()) {
E e = i.next();
if (e == x) {
// Found, so move it to the front,
i.remove();
list.addFirst(x);
// Return it
return x;
}
}
Unfortunately, in the .NET behavior of IEnumerator<T> (the equivalent of Iterator<E>) there's no remove method to remove the current element from the collection.
Also, in the LinkedList<T> there's no way to access an element at a given index, to accomplish the task by iterating back from the last to the first.
Have you got any idea on how to do it? Thank you very much!
This will remove all nodes that match a criteria, in one loop through the linked list.
LinkedListNode<E> node = list.First;
while (node != null)
{
var next = node.Next;
if (node.Value == x) {
list.Remove(e);
}
node = next;
}
I believe that's what you're attempting... You also added back in the node at the beginning of the list (so your java code didn't remove all of the nodes, but rather moved the first matching to the beginning of the list). That would be easy to do with this approach, as well.
It's actually a lot easier in C#.
function PlaceAtHead(<T> x)
{
list.Remove(x);
list.AddFirst(x);
return x;
}
One ugly option is to iterate through your list, find all the items that apply and store them in a list. Then iterate through your second list and call remove on your LinkedList...
I'm hoping someone else has a more elegant solution :)
Just a little addition to Reed Copsey's answer with a predicate:
public static T MoveAheadAndReturn<T>(LinkedList<T> ll, Predicate<T> pred)
{
if (ll == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException("ll");
if (pred == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException("pred");
LinkedListNode<T> node = ll.First;
T value = default(T);
while (node != null)
{
value = node.Value;
if (pred(value))
{
ll.Remove(node);
ll.AddFirst(node);
break;
}
node = node.Next;
}
return value;
}

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