I am looking for a better pattern for working with a list of elements which each need processed and then depending on the outcome are removed from the list.
You can't use .Remove(element) inside a foreach (var element in X) (because it results in Collection was modified; enumeration operation may not execute. exception)... you also can't use for (int i = 0; i < elements.Count(); i++) and .RemoveAt(i) because it disrupts your current position in the collection relative to i.
Is there an elegant way to do this?
Iterate your list in reverse with a for loop:
for (int i = safePendingList.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
// some code
// safePendingList.RemoveAt(i);
}
Example:
var list = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 10));
for (int i = list.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
if (list[i] > 5)
list.RemoveAt(i);
}
list.ForEach(i => Console.WriteLine(i));
Alternately, you can use the RemoveAll method with a predicate to test against:
safePendingList.RemoveAll(item => item.Value == someValue);
Here's a simplified example to demonstrate:
var list = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 10));
Console.WriteLine("Before:");
list.ForEach(i => Console.WriteLine(i));
list.RemoveAll(i => i > 5);
Console.WriteLine("After:");
list.ForEach(i => Console.WriteLine(i));
foreach (var item in list.ToList()) {
list.Remove(item);
}
If you add ".ToList()" to your list (or the results of a LINQ query), you can remove "item" directly from "list" without the dreaded "Collection was modified; enumeration operation may not execute." error. The compiler makes a copy of "list", so that you can safely do the remove on the array.
While this pattern is not super efficient, it has a natural feel and is flexible enough for almost any situation. Such as when you want to save each "item" to a DB and remove it from the list only when the DB save succeeds.
A simple and straightforward solution:
Use a standard for-loop running backwards on your collection and RemoveAt(i) to remove elements.
Reverse iteration should be the first thing to come to mind when you want to remove elements from a Collection while iterating over it.
Luckily, there is a more elegant solution than writing a for loop which involves needless typing and can be error prone.
ICollection<int> test = new List<int>(new int[] {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10});
foreach (int myInt in test.Reverse<int>())
{
if (myInt % 2 == 0)
{
test.Remove(myInt);
}
}
Using the ToArray() on a generic list allows you to do a Remove(item) on your generic List:
List<String> strings = new List<string>() { "a", "b", "c", "d" };
foreach (string s in strings.ToArray())
{
if (s == "b")
strings.Remove(s);
}
Select the elements you do want rather than trying to remove the elements you don't want. This is so much easier (and generally more efficient too) than removing elements.
var newSequence = (from el in list
where el.Something || el.AnotherThing < 0
select el);
I wanted to post this as a comment in response to the comment left by Michael Dillon below, but it's too long and probably useful to have in my answer anyway:
Personally, I'd never remove items one-by-one, if you do need removal, then call RemoveAll which takes a predicate and only rearranges the internal array once, whereas Remove does an Array.Copy operation for every element you remove. RemoveAll is vastly more efficient.
And when you're backwards iterating over a list, you already have the index of the element you want to remove, so it would be far more efficient to call RemoveAt, because Remove first does a traversal of the list to find the index of the element you're trying to remove, but you already know that index.
So all in all, I don't see any reason to ever call Remove in a for-loop. And ideally, if it is at all possible, use the above code to stream elements from the list as needed so no second data structure has to be created at all.
Using .ToList() will make a copy of your list, as explained in this question:
ToList()-- Does it Create a New List?
By using ToList(), you can remove from your original list, because you're actually iterating over a copy.
foreach (var item in listTracked.ToList()) {
if (DetermineIfRequiresRemoval(item)) {
listTracked.Remove(item)
}
}
If the function that determines which items to delete has no side effects and doesn't mutate the item (it's a pure function), a simple and efficient (linear time) solution is:
list.RemoveAll(condition);
If there are side effects, I'd use something like:
var toRemove = new HashSet<T>();
foreach(var item in items)
{
...
if(condition)
toRemove.Add(item);
}
items.RemoveAll(toRemove.Contains);
This is still linear time, assuming the hash is good. But it has an increased memory use due to the hashset.
Finally if your list is only an IList<T> instead of a List<T> I suggest my answer to How can I do this special foreach iterator?. This will have linear runtime given typical implementations of IList<T>, compared with quadratic runtime of many other answers.
As any remove is taken on a condition you can use
list.RemoveAll(item => item.Value == someValue);
List<T> TheList = new List<T>();
TheList.FindAll(element => element.Satisfies(Condition)).ForEach(element => TheList.Remove(element));
You can't use foreach, but you could iterate forwards and manage your loop index variable when you remove an item, like so:
for (int i = 0; i < elements.Count; i++)
{
if (<condition>)
{
// Decrement the loop counter to iterate this index again, since later elements will get moved down during the remove operation.
elements.RemoveAt(i--);
}
}
Note that in general all of these techniques rely on the behaviour of the collection being iterated. The technique shown here will work with the standard List(T). (It is quite possible to write your own collection class and iterator that does allow item removal during a foreach loop.)
For loops are a bad construct for this.
Using while
var numbers = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 3));
while (numbers.Count > 0)
{
numbers.RemoveAt(0);
}
But, if you absolutely must use for
var numbers = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 3));
for (; numbers.Count > 0;)
{
numbers.RemoveAt(0);
}
Or, this:
public static class Extensions
{
public static IList<T> Remove<T>(
this IList<T> numbers,
Func<T, bool> predicate)
{
numbers.ForEachBackwards(predicate, (n, index) => numbers.RemoveAt(index));
return numbers;
}
public static void ForEachBackwards<T>(
this IList<T> numbers,
Func<T, bool> predicate,
Action<T, int> action)
{
for (var i = numbers.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
if (predicate(numbers[i]))
{
action(numbers[i], i);
}
}
}
}
Usage:
var numbers = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 10)).Remove((n) => n > 5);
However, LINQ already has RemoveAll() to do this
var numbers = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 10));
numbers.RemoveAll((n) => n > 5);
Lastly, you are probably better off using LINQ's Where() to filter and create a new list instead of mutating the existing list. Immutability is usually good.
var numbers = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 10))
.Where((n) => n <= 5)
.ToList();
Using Remove or RemoveAt on a list while iterating over that list has intentionally been made difficult, because it is almost always the wrong thing to do. You might be able to get it working with some clever trick, but it would be extremely slow. Every time you call Remove it has to scan through the entire list to find the element you want to remove. Every time you call RemoveAt it has to move subsequent elements 1 position to the left. As such, any solution using Remove or RemoveAt, would require quadratic time, O(n²).
Use RemoveAll if you can. Otherwise, the following pattern will filter the list in-place in linear time, O(n).
// Create a list to be filtered
IList<int> elements = new List<int>(new int[] {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10});
// Filter the list
int kept = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < elements.Count; i++) {
// Test whether this is an element that we want to keep.
if (elements[i] % 3 > 0) {
// Add it to the list of kept elements.
elements[kept] = elements[i];
kept++;
}
}
// Unfortunately IList has no Resize method. So instead we
// remove the last element of the list until: elements.Count == kept.
while (kept < elements.Count) elements.RemoveAt(elements.Count-1);
I would reassign the list from a LINQ query that filtered out the elements you didn't want to keep.
list = list.Where(item => ...).ToList();
Unless the list is very large there should be no significant performance problems in doing this.
The best way to remove items from a list while iterating over it is to use RemoveAll(). But the main concern written by people is that they have to do some complex things inside the loop and/or have complex compare cases.
The solution is to still use RemoveAll() but use this notation:
var list = new List<int>(Enumerable.Range(1, 10));
list.RemoveAll(item =>
{
// Do some complex operations here
// Or even some operations on the items
SomeFunction(item);
// In the end return true if the item is to be removed. False otherwise
return item > 5;
});
By assuming that predicate is a Boolean property of an element, that if it is true, then the element should be removed:
int i = 0;
while (i < list.Count())
{
if (list[i].predicate == true)
{
list.RemoveAt(i);
continue;
}
i++;
}
In C# one easy way is to mark the ones you wish to delete then create a new list to iterate over...
foreach(var item in list.ToList()){if(item.Delete) list.Remove(item);}
or even simpler use linq....
list.RemoveAll(p=>p.Delete);
but it is worth considering if other tasks or threads will have access to the same list at the same time you are busy removing, and maybe use a ConcurrentList instead.
I wish the "pattern" was something like this:
foreach( thing in thingpile )
{
if( /* condition#1 */ )
{
foreach.markfordeleting( thing );
}
elseif( /* condition#2 */ )
{
foreach.markforkeeping( thing );
}
}
foreachcompleted
{
// then the programmer's choices would be:
// delete everything that was marked for deleting
foreach.deletenow(thingpile);
// ...or... keep only things that were marked for keeping
foreach.keepnow(thingpile);
// ...or even... make a new list of the unmarked items
others = foreach.unmarked(thingpile);
}
This would align the code with the process that goes on in the programmer's brain.
foreach(var item in list.ToList())
{
if(item.Delete) list.Remove(item);
}
Simply create an entirely new list from the first one. I say "Easy" rather than "Right" as creating an entirely new list probably comes at a performance premium over the previous method (I haven't bothered with any benchmarking.) I generally prefer this pattern, it can also be useful in overcoming Linq-To-Entities limitations.
for(i = list.Count()-1;i>=0;i--)
{
item=list[i];
if (item.Delete) list.Remove(item);
}
This way cycles through the list backwards with a plain old For loop. Doing this forwards could be problematic if the size of the collection changes, but backwards should always be safe.
Just wanted to add my 2 cents to this in case this helps anyone, I had a similar problem but needed to remove multiple elements from an array list while it was being iterated over. the highest upvoted answer did it for me for the most part until I ran into errors and realized that the index was greater than the size of the array list in some instances because multiple elements were being removed but the index of the loop didn't keep track of that. I fixed this with a simple check:
ArrayList place_holder = new ArrayList();
place_holder.Add("1");
place_holder.Add("2");
place_holder.Add("3");
place_holder.Add("4");
for(int i = place_holder.Count-1; i>= 0; i--){
if(i>= place_holder.Count){
i = place_holder.Count-1;
}
// some method that removes multiple elements here
}
There is an option that hasn't been mentioned here.
If you don't mind adding a bit of code somewhere in your project, you can add and extension to List to return an instance of a class that does iterate through the list in reverse.
You would use it like this :
foreach (var elem in list.AsReverse())
{
//Do stuff with elem
//list.Remove(elem); //Delete it if you want
}
And here is what the extension looks like:
public static class ReverseListExtension
{
public static ReverseList<T> AsReverse<T>(this List<T> list) => new ReverseList<T>(list);
public class ReverseList<T> : IEnumerable
{
List<T> list;
public ReverseList(List<T> list){ this.list = list; }
public IEnumerator GetEnumerator()
{
for (int i = list.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
yield return list[i];
yield break;
}
}
}
This is basically list.Reverse() without the allocation.
Like some have mentioned you still get the drawback of deleting elements one by one, and if your list is massively long some of the options here are better. But I think there is a world where someone would want the simplicity of list.Reverse(), without the memory overhead.
Copy the list you are iterating. Then remove from the copy and interate the original. Going backwards is confusing and doesn't work well when looping in parallel.
var ids = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
var iterableIds = ids.ToList();
Parallel.ForEach(iterableIds, id =>
{
ids.Remove(id);
});
I would do like this
using System.IO;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
class Author
{
public string Firstname;
public string Lastname;
public int no;
}
class Program
{
private static bool isEven(int i)
{
return ((i % 2) == 0);
}
static void Main()
{
var authorsList = new List<Author>()
{
new Author{ Firstname = "Bob", Lastname = "Smith", no = 2 },
new Author{ Firstname = "Fred", Lastname = "Jones", no = 3 },
new Author{ Firstname = "Brian", Lastname = "Brains", no = 4 },
new Author{ Firstname = "Billy", Lastname = "TheKid", no = 1 }
};
authorsList.RemoveAll(item => isEven(item.no));
foreach(var auth in authorsList)
{
Console.WriteLine(auth.Firstname + " " + auth.Lastname);
}
}
}
OUTPUT
Fred Jones
Billy TheKid
I found myself in a similar situation where I had to remove every nth element in a given List<T>.
for (int i = 0, j = 0, n = 3; i < list.Count; i++)
{
if ((j + 1) % n == 0) //Check current iteration is at the nth interval
{
list.RemoveAt(i);
j++; //This extra addition is necessary. Without it j will wrap
//down to zero, which will throw off our index.
}
j++; //This will always advance the j counter
}
The cost of removing an item from the list is proportional to the number of items following the one to be removed. In the case where the first half of the items qualify for removal, any approach which is based upon removing items individually will end up having to perform about N*N/4 item-copy operations, which can get very expensive if the list is large.
A faster approach is to scan through the list to find the first item to be removed (if any), and then from that point forward copy each item which should be retained to the spot where it belongs. Once this is done, if R items should be retained, the first R items in the list will be those R items, and all of the items requiring deletion will be at the end. If those items are deleted in reverse order, the system won't end up having to copy any of them, so if the list had N items of which R items, including all of the first F, were retained,
it will be necessary to copy R-F items, and shrink the list by one item N-R times. All linear time.
My approach is that I first create a list of indices, which should get deleted. Afterwards I loop over the indices and remove the items from the initial list. This looks like this:
var messageList = ...;
// Restrict your list to certain criteria
var customMessageList = messageList.FindAll(m => m.UserId == someId);
if (customMessageList != null && customMessageList.Count > 0)
{
// Create list with positions in origin list
List<int> positionList = new List<int>();
foreach (var message in customMessageList)
{
var position = messageList.FindIndex(m => m.MessageId == message.MessageId);
if (position != -1)
positionList.Add(position);
}
// To be able to remove the items in the origin list, we do it backwards
// so that the order of indices stays the same
positionList = positionList.OrderByDescending(p => p).ToList();
foreach (var position in positionList)
{
messageList.RemoveAt(position);
}
}
Trace the elements to be removed with a property, and remove them all after process.
using System.Linq;
List<MyProperty> _Group = new List<MyProperty>();
// ... add elements
bool cond = false;
foreach (MyProperty currObj in _Group)
{
// here it is supposed that you decide the "remove conditions"...
cond = true; // set true or false...
if (cond)
{
// SET - element can be deleted
currObj.REMOVE_ME = true;
}
}
// RESET
_Group.RemoveAll(r => r.REMOVE_ME);
myList.RemoveAt(i--);
simples;
I have problem with updating a single item under List<string> that matches a different string using LINQ. Let's say that I have a list of names and I want to check if name "John" already exists in my list. If yes, then replace "John" with "Anna".
Here is what I do:
var sItem = myList.First(n=> n == "John"); //I am 100% sure that John exists, that\s why I use .First
sItem = "Anna";
This is how it should work, but when I check my List (myList) after the process, the original item is still there (I can still see John, instead of Anna). I also tried to implement INotifyChanged on the List, but still no result.
What am I doing wrong?
If you need to update, use FindIndex:
int index = myList.FindIndex(n => n == "John");
myList[index] = "Anna";
You are assigning the result of linq query to a string variable. That is not the element of list but a variable that is also referencing the element of that list. Changing the value of variable sItem will define a new string that will be referenced by the sItem and the item in the list remains unchanged.
You can use FindIndex to get the index of element in the array and use it to refer to list element.
int index = myList.FindIndex(n => n == "John");
myList[index] = "Anna";
Searches for an element that matches the conditions defined by the
specified predicate, and returns the zero-based index of the first
occurrence within the entire List.
Edit
When one string variable is assigned to other. They both would be referencing the same string but when you assign a different string to second variable for instance then they both referencing different strings. See the following example from answer of Eric Lippert.
a----------------------Hello
Then you say that "b = a", which means attach another piece of string to the same thing that a is attached to:
a----------------------Hello
/
b---------------------
Then you say "now attach b to Hi"
a----------------------Hello
b----------------------Hi
int index = strList.FindIndex(n => n == "John");
if (index != -1)
{
strList[index] = "Anna";
}
This will ensure that if "John" does not exist in the list, the program does not crash.
It should work for you
List<string> list = new List<string>();
list.Add("Gandarez");
list.Add("Carlos");
var search = list.FirstOrDefault(l => l == "Carlos");
if (search != null)
{
var index = list.IndexOf("Carlos");
list.RemoveAt(index);
list.Insert(index, "Test");
}
int sItem = myList.FindIndex(x => x == "John");
myList[sItem] = "Anna";
The problem you are seeing is that System.String, while actually a reference type, acts like a value type. So, when you assign a new value to sItem you are replacing it, not changing it.
If you were using a true reference type, what you tried could have worked:
List<Person> myList = ....;
var sItem = myList.First(p=> p.Name == "John");
sItem.Name = "Anna";
(Assigning -- sItem = new Person("Anna"); -- would still fail the same way,)
I have a List<string> containing file paths. How can I check if there is a particular file in my list e.g. file.txt? Preferably a method returning not a bool value but list element or element's index.
I've read the List<T> documentation but it only confused me as I'm a beginning programmer and my English isn't very good.
Use Where to get a list of values:
var found = fileList.
Where((f)=>System.IO.Path.GetFileName(f)
.Equals(SEARCH_VALUE,
StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase));
or use FirstOrDefault for single element or null in case it's not found
If your list contains the full path (like c:\windows\system.ini") I would use System.IO.Path.GetFileName and also keep in mind to search case intenstive
var result = from f in files
where Path.GetFileName(f).Equals("file.txt",
StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)
select f;
bool found = result.Any();
The IndexOf method is what you need, if you want to find the path that exactly watches what you are looking for.
However, if you what to find paths in your list that end with a certain file name, you can do,
var matches = paths.Select((path, i) => new { Path = path, Index = i })
.Where(item => Path.GetFileName(item.Path).Equals(
"file.txt",
StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
However, note that matches will be a sequence of 0 or more matches. So, you can do,
if (matches.Any())
{
// I found something.
foreach (var match in matches)
{
var matchIndex = match.Index;
var matchPath = match.Path;
}
}
else
{
// Oops, no matches.
}
or, if you only want the first.
var firstMatchPath = matches.First().Path;
would do.
If you just want the first value if there is one then you can do this.
var value = mylist.FirstOrDefault(x=>x.EndsWith("file.txt"));
or if you want to do something with each matching string.
foreach (string value in mylist.Where(x=>x.EndsWith("file.txt")) )
{
// Do whatever you intend with value.
}
or if you want a list of the indices of the values, then you could try this.
var indexValues = new List<int>();
foreach (string value in mylist.Where(x=>x.EndsWith("file.txt")) )
{
indexValues.Add(mylist.IndexOf(value));
}
Use LINQ (assuming you havethe paths as strings):
var found = from f in fileList where f.equals("file.txt") select f;
Considering that you have path and file name is located at the end of path:
//List of elements
List<string> foundElements = myInitialList.Where(s => s.EndsWith("file.txt")).ToList();
//List of Indexes (base on lift of elements here above)
List<int> indexList = new List<int>();
foundElements.ForEach(f => indexList.Add(myInitialList.IndexOf(f)));
It's not clear from your question, but it seems that the list will contain file paths, but what you are looking for is a filename.
The following code will give you the index of the first occurrence of a file called "file.txt" in the list of path names, or -1 if it isn't in the list.
Note how this uses Path.GetFileName(). This is so that it will match "c:\dir1\dir2\file.txt" and not "c:\dir1\dir2\wrongfile.txt".
int index = filenames.FindIndex(filename => Path.GetFileName(filename).Equals("file.txt", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
However, if you are searching for an entire path then you can do it like this:
int index = filenames.FindIndex(filename => filename.Equals("file.txt", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
Note how we do a comparison of the entire filename rather than using "EndsWith".
If the filenames are already all lowercase and you are comparing entire paths then you can do a simpler search:
int index = filenames.IndexOf("file.txt");
Or if they are all uppercase you'd have to do:
int index = filenames.IndexOf("FILE.TXT");
The goal is to sort through a text (i.e. a speech) and output a list of the distinct words in the speech to a textbox. I have read through a lot of tips on the boards and played around a lot but at this point am at that point where I am more confused then when I started. Here is my code
private void GenerateList(string[] wordlist)
{
List<string> wordList = new List<string>();
for (int i = 0; i < wordlist.Length; i++)
{
wordList.Add(wordlist[i]);
}
var uniqueStr = from item in wordList.Distinct().ToList()
orderby item
select item;
for (int i = 0; i < uniqueStr.Count(); i++ )
{
txtOutput.Text = uniqueStr.ElementAt(i) + "\n";
}
}
At this point I am getting a return of one word. For the text I am using (the gettysburg address) it is the word "year" and it is the only instance of that word in the text.
I am passing the function each individual word loaded into a string array that is then put into a list (which may be redundant?).
I hope this does what you need in a simple and efficient manner (using .Dump() from LINQPad)
void Main()
{
// can be any IEnumerable<string> including string[]
var words = new List<string>{"one", "two", "four", "three", "four", "a", "z"};
words.ToDistinctList().Dump();
// you would use txtOutput.Text = words.ToDistinctList()
}
static class StringHelpers
{
public static string ToDistinctList(this IEnumerable<string> words)
{
return string.Join("\n", new SortedSet<string>(words));
}
}
A few tips regarding your question:
There is no reason to turn the array into list, because LINQ extension methods are defined on IEnumerable<T>, which is implemented by both the array and the list
Make sure that all letters are in the same case - use ToLower, for instance
You are overwriting txtOutput.Text in every iteration. Instead of setting the new value, append new part to the existing value
Here is the simple piece of code which produces the output you wanted:
IEnumerable<string> distinct =
wordList
.Select(word => word.ToLower())
.Distinct()
.OrderBy(word => word);
txtOutput.Text = string.Join("\n", distinct.ToArray());
On a related note, here is a very simple LINQ expression which returns distinct words from a text, where the whole text is specified as one string:
public static IEnumerable<string> SplitIntoWords(this string text)
{
string pattern = #"\b[\p{L}]+\b";
return
Regex.Matches(text, pattern)
.Cast<Match>() // Extract matches
.Select(match => match.Value.ToLower()) // Change to same case
.Distinct(); // Remove duplicates
}
You can find more variations of regex pattern for the same problem here: Regex and LINQ Query to Split Text into Distinct Words
Here's how I'd simplify your code, as well as achieve what you want to achieve.
private void GenerateList(string[] wordlist)
{
List<string> wordList = wordlist.ToList(); // initialize the list passing in the array
var uniqueStr = from item in wordList.Distinct().ToList()
orderby item
select item;
txtOutput.Text = String.Join("\n", uniqueStr.ToArray());
}
You can use the fact that the StringBuilder class has a fluent interface along with LINQ to simplify this greatly.
First, you can create the StringBuilder and concatenate all of the words into the same instance like so:
// The builder.
var builder = new StringBuilder();
// A copy of the builder *reference*.
var builderCopy = builder;
// Get the distinct list, order by the string.
builder = wordList
// Get the distinct elements.
.Distinct()
// Order the words.
.OrderBy(w => w).
// Append the builder.
Select(w => builderCopy.AppendLine(word)).
// Get the last or default element, this will
// cycle through all of the elements.
LastOrDefault();
// If the builder is not null, then assign to the output, otherwise,
// assign null.
txtOutput.Text = builder == null ? null : builder.ToString();
Note, you don't have to actually materialize the list, as wordList is already a materialized list, it's an array (and as a side note, typed arrays in C# implement the IList<T> interface).
The AppendLine method (and most of the methods on StringBuilder) return the instance of the StringBuilder that the operation was performed on, which is why the LastOrDefault method call works; simply call the operation and return the result (each item returned will be the same reference).
The builderCopy variable is used to avoid access to a modified closure (it never hurts to be safe).
The null check at the end is for the case where wordList doesn't contain any elements. In this case, the call to LastOrDefault will return null.