Return an empty IEnumerator

Question

I have an interface that, among other things, implements a "public IEnumerator GetEnumerator()" method, so I can use the interface in a foreach statement.

I implement this interface in several classes and in one of them, I want to return an empty IEnumerator. Right now I do this the following way:

public IEnumerator GetEnumerator()
{
    ArrayList arr = new ArrayList();
    return arr.GetEnumerator();
}

However I consider this an ugly hack, and I can't help but think that there is a better way of returning an empty IEnumerator. Is there?

user_287107 · Answer

There is an extra function in the framework:

public static class Enumerable
{
    public static IEnumerable Empty();
}

Using this you can write:

var emptyEnumerable = Enumerable.Empty();
var emptyEnumerator = Enumerable.Empty().GetEnumerator();

Return an empty IEnumerator

9 Answers