How do you get the index of the current iteration of a foreach loop?

Question

Is there some rare language construct I haven\'t encountered (like the few I\'ve learned recently, some on Stack Overflow) in C# to get a value representing the current iter

Answer 1

Finally C#7 has a decent syntax for getting an index inside of a foreach loop (i. e. tuples):

foreach (var (item, index) in collection.WithIndex())
{
    Debug.WriteLine($"{index}: {item}");
}

A little extension method would be needed:

public static IEnumerable<(T item, int index)> WithIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> self)       
   => self.Select((item, index) => (item, index)); 

Answer 2

My solution for this problem is an extension method WithIndex(),

http://code.google.com/p/ub-dotnet-utilities/source/browse/trunk/Src/Utilities/Extensions/EnumerableExtensions.cs

Use it like

var list = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 };    

var odd = list.WithIndex().Where(i => (i.Item & 1) == 1);
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new[] { 0, 2, 4 }, odd.Select(i => i.Index));
CollectionAssert.AreEqual(new[] { 1, 3, 5 }, odd.Select(i => i.Item));

Answer 3

I don't think this should be quite efficient, but it works:

@foreach (var banner in Model.MainBanners) {
    @Model.MainBanners.IndexOf(banner)
}

Answer 4

You could wrap the original enumerator with another that does contain the index information.

foreach (var item in ForEachHelper.WithIndex(collection))
{
    Console.Write("Index=" + item.Index);
    Console.Write(";Value= " + item.Value);
    Console.Write(";IsLast=" + item.IsLast);
    Console.WriteLine();
}

Here is the code for the ForEachHelper class.

public static class ForEachHelper
{
    public sealed class Item<T>
    {
        public int Index { get; set; }
        public T Value { get; set; }
        public bool IsLast { get; set; }
    }

    public static IEnumerable<Item<T>> WithIndex<T>(IEnumerable<T> enumerable)
    {
        Item<T> item = null;
        foreach (T value in enumerable)
        {
            Item<T> next = new Item<T>();
            next.Index = 0;
            next.Value = value;
            next.IsLast = false;
            if (item != null)
            {
                next.Index = item.Index + 1;
                yield return item;
            }
            item = next;
        }
        if (item != null)
        {
            item.IsLast = true;
            yield return item;
        }            
    }
}

Answer 5

int index;
foreach (Object o in collection)
{
    index = collection.indexOf(o);
}

This would work for collections supporting IList.

Answer 6

I just had this problem, but thinking around the problem in my case gave the best solution, unrelated to the expected solution.

It could be quite a common case, basically, I'm reading from one source list and creating objects based on them in a destination list, however, I have to check whether the source items are valid first and want to return the row of any error. At first-glance, I want to get the index into the enumerator of the object at the Current property, however, as I am copying these elements, I implicitly know the current index anyway from the current destination. Obviously it depends on your destination object, but for me it was a List, and most likely it will implement ICollection.

i.e.

var destinationList = new List<someObject>();
foreach (var item in itemList)
{
  var stringArray = item.Split(new char[] { ';', ',' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

  if (stringArray.Length != 2)
  {
    //use the destinationList Count property to give us the index into the stringArray list
    throw new Exception("Item at row " + (destinationList.Count + 1) + " has a problem.");
  }
  else
  {
    destinationList.Add(new someObject() { Prop1 = stringArray[0], Prop2 = stringArray[1]});
  }
}

Not always applicable, but often enough to be worth mentioning, I think.

Anyway, the point being that sometimes there is a non-obvious solution already in the logic you have...