What's your favorite LINQ to Objects operator which is not built-in? [closed]

Solution 1:

Append & Prepend

(These have been added to .NET since this answer was written.)

/// <summary>Adds a single element to the end of an IEnumerable.</summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">Type of enumerable to return.</typeparam>
/// <returns>IEnumerable containing all the input elements, followed by the
/// specified additional element.</returns>
public static IEnumerable<T> Append<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, T element)
{
    if (source == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
    return concatIterator(element, source, false);
}

/// <summary>Adds a single element to the start of an IEnumerable.</summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">Type of enumerable to return.</typeparam>
/// <returns>IEnumerable containing the specified additional element, followed by
/// all the input elements.</returns>
public static IEnumerable<T> Prepend<T>(this IEnumerable<T> tail, T head)
{
    if (tail == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("tail");
    return concatIterator(head, tail, true);
}

private static IEnumerable<T> concatIterator<T>(T extraElement,
    IEnumerable<T> source, bool insertAtStart)
{
    if (insertAtStart)
        yield return extraElement;
    foreach (var e in source)
        yield return e;
    if (!insertAtStart)
        yield return extraElement;
}

Solution 2:

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the MoreLINQ project yet. It was started by Jon Skeet and has gained some developers along the way. From the project's page:

LINQ to Objects is missing a few desirable features.

This project will enhance LINQ to Objects with extra methods, in a manner which keeps to the spirit of LINQ.

Take a look at the Operators Overview wiki page for a list of implemented operators.

It is certainly a good way to learn from some clean and elegant source code.

Solution 3:

Each

Nothing for the purists, but darn it's useful!

 public static void Each<T>(this IEnumerable<T> items, Action<T> action)
 {
   foreach (var i in items)
      action(i);
 }

Solution 4:

ToQueue & ToStack

/// <summary>Creates a <see cref="Queue&lt;T&gt;"/> from an enumerable
/// collection.</summary>
public static Queue<T> ToQueue<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source)
{
    if (source == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
    return new Queue<T>(source);
}

/// <summary>Creates a <see cref="Stack&lt;T&gt;"/> from an enumerable
/// collection.</summary>
public static Stack<T> ToStack<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source)
{
    if (source == null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
    return new Stack<T>(source);
}