Function of GetEnumerator() in CSHARP

Question

Why we use GetEnumerator( ) of Ienumerable interface

Priya Linge · Answer

Hi Please check below link for more information. http://www.functionx.com/csharp/Lesson29.htm 1.Unlike NET Framework facilitates accessing individual elements in the custom collection while implementing IEnumerable and IEnumerator interfaces. For example it is a hassle free job to access types collected in an ArrayList. This had been eased by ArrayList class while implementing IEnumerable and IEnumerator interfaces 2. The IEnumerable interface contains an abstract member function called GetEnumerator() and return an interface IEnumerator on any success call. This IEnumerator interface will allow us to iterate through any custom collection. 3.The IEnumerator interface is returned by GetEnumerator() method. All .Net collections implement The IEnumerable interface and the GetEnumerator() method. 4.Exposes the enumerator which supports a simple iteration over a non-generic collection. 5.IEnumerable must be implemented to support the foreach semantics of Microsoft Visual Basic. COM classes that allow enumerators also implement this interface. 6.It's the interface that enumerates all the elements in a sequence . Hope this will help you. Thanks.

Datta Kharad · Answer

Hi.. Let's examine the most common and easiest way to loop through a Dictionary instance. The foreach loop here actually compiles into intermediate language that uses the GetEnumerator method MoveNext and Current as well as a try/finally block. Finally Looping over Dictionary with foreach [C#] static int A(Dictionary d) { int a = 0; foreach (var pair in d) { a += pair.Value; } return a; } Next this method demonstrates the GetEnumerator and MoveNext methods and the Current property directly. This code is compiled to the same intermediate language except the try/finally block is absent. Looping over Dictionary with GetEnumerator [C#] static int B(Dictionary d) { int b = 0; var enumerator = d. GetEnumerator (); while (enumerator.MoveNext()) { var pair = enumerator.Current; b += pair.Value; } return b; } What's the difference? The difference between method A and method B is that method B is harder to read and it also omits the try/finally construct that was added by the C# compiler. Therefore the next question is Which one is faster? Performance I tested the two methods of looping through Dictionary instances in a test program. The harness used is available in the link below. The dictionary initialization code is shown below as well and finally we see that method B was faster by a fairly constant amount. Example:- var d = new Dictionary (); d[one] = 1; d[two] = 2; d[three] = 3; d[four] = 4; d[five] = 5; Results:- Method A ( foreach ): 92.07 ns Method B ( GetEnumerator ): 88.53 ns Summary Using GetEnumerator directly is somewhat faster than using the foreach loop on Dictionary. The finally statement actually calls the enumerators Dispose method which has an empty implementation. Thus GetEnumerator is worth considering as a way to improve Dictionary performance in certain C# programs.