#810 – Where Extension Methods Came From

March 28, 2013 1 Comment

Extension methods were introduced into the C# language as part of version 3.0 of the language, introduced in November of 2007.  C# 3.0 was part of the same release that included version 3.5 of the .NET Framework.

Extension methods are a language mechanism that can be used in a variety of circumstances.  They were included in the language, however, to help support the features of LINQ (Language Integrated Query), which was also introduced in November, 2007, as part of .NET Framework 3.5.

LINQ includes a large number of extension methods that extend the existing System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<T> class, which was part of .NET Framework 2.0.  Adding this functionality by way of extension methods allowed LINQ to operate on standard collections, rather than introducing a new LINQ-specific collection class.

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#806 – An Example of Mandatory Use of the var Keyword

March 22, 2013 2 Comments

When assigning the result of a query expression to a variable, there are cases when you do know the result type and so the use of the var keyword is optional.

However, in some cases, an anonymous type is created to contain the results of the expression.  In these cases, you must use the var keyword, because the correct type is generated internally by the compiler and not available to your code.

In the example below, we get something back that we can iterate on, but each element within the result set is anonymously typed, an object containing Name and Age fields.

            var oldDogs = from aDog in dogs
                                          where aDog.Age > 10
                                          select new { aDog.Name, aDog.Age };

            foreach (var anOldie in oldDogs)
                Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}, age {1}", anOldie.Name, anOldie.Age));

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#805 – An Example of Discretionary Use of the var Keyword

March 21, 2013 2 Comments

Below is one example where you may or may not want to use the var keyword.

            var oldDogs = from aDog in dogs
                          where aDog.Age > 10
                          select aDog.Name;

            foreach (var next in oldDogs)
                Console.WriteLine(next);

This works just fine.  We don’t specify the type of the value returned from the query expression, but we know that it’s something that we can iterate on, so we just use var for the result and then var again in the foreach.

The difficulty comes when someone else is going to modify this code.  The query actually returns an enumerable list of strings.  But reading the code, you might make the mistake of thinking that it returns a list of dogs.

We could have been more clear by writing:

            IEnumerable<string> oldDogs = from aDog in dogs
                          where aDog.Age > 10
                          select aDog.Name;

            foreach (string name in oldDogs)
                Console.WriteLine(name);

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#392 – Reversing a String Using the Reverse Method

August 18, 2011 5 Comments

Starting with .NET 3.5, you can use a number of extension methods that are part of the System.Linq namespace to act upon any type that implements IEnumerable<T>.  This includes the string type in C# (System.String), which implements IEnumerable<char>.

One of the most useful extension methods that comes with Linq is the Reverse method (Enumerable.Reverse<TSource>).  Because this is an extension method, you can use it on an instance of a string as if it were an instance method.

            string funnyMan = "Roscoe Arbuckle";

            string backwardsGuy = new string(funnyMan.Reverse().ToArray());

Because Reverse returns an object of type ReverseIterator<char>, we need to convert it back to an array and then use the array to instantiate a new string.

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