In this article you will learn about Collection Interface in .NET. It provides information about interfaces implemented by collection.
Introduction .NET framework provides interfaces that implements by collections in language to provide functionality of iterating over objects in collection, adding and removing object from collection to randomly access object from collection. As different interfaces provide different set of functionality most of the developers has problem when to use which interface to achieve functionality. The following post provides information about interfaces implemented by collection. Interfaces The following diagram is for relation between the interfaces. Note:
Note: In above diagram (Inherited), the columns indicate that the features are inherited from parent and to find out from which parent one must look in the interface collection diagram.
So from above table three main interfaces functionality concluded in following way:
IEnumerable – interface provide minimum functionality which is Enumration.
ICollection – interface provide medium functionality which is getting size, adding, removing and clearing collection i.e. modification of collection. As it inherited from IEnumerable so includes functionality of IEnumerable.
IList – interface provide full functionality which is index base accessing of collection element, index base adding, index base removing from collection. As it inherited from ICollection it includes functionality of Enumerable and ICollection.
Above table list down the features provided by each interface when collection gets converted to interface type or class implement interface to provide feature of collection. Conclusion It’s very important for developers to understand these interfaces because the rule says its always good to depend on interface rather than on the concrete type.
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