How to iterate over two arrays at once?

Question

I have two arrays built while parsing a text file. The first contains the column names, the second contains the values from the current row. I need to iterate over both lists at once to build a map. Right now I have the following:

var currentValues = currentRow.Split(separatorChar);
var valueEnumerator = currentValues.GetEnumerator();

foreach (String column in columnList)
{
    valueEnumerator.MoveNext();
    valueMap.Add(column, (String)valueEnumerator.Current);
}

This works just fine, but it doesn't quite satisfy my sense of elegance, and it gets really hairy if the number of arrays is larger than two (as I have to do occasionally). Does anyone have another, terser idiom?

Answer 1

You've got a non-obvious pseudo-bug in your initial code - IEnumerator<T> extends IDisposable so you should dispose it. This can be very important with iterator blocks! Not a problem for arrays, but would be with other IEnumerable<T> implementations.

I'd do it like this:

public static IEnumerable<TResult> PairUp<TFirst,TSecond,TResult>
    (this IEnumerable<TFirst> source, IEnumerable<TSecond> secondSequence,
     Func<TFirst,TSecond,TResult> projection)
{
    using (IEnumerator<TSecond> secondIter = secondSequence.GetEnumerator())
    {
        foreach (TFirst first in source)
        {
            if (!secondIter.MoveNext())
            {
                throw new ArgumentException
                    ("First sequence longer than second");
            }
            yield return projection(first, secondIter.Current);
        }
        if (secondIter.MoveNext())
        {
            throw new ArgumentException
                ("Second sequence longer than first");
        }
    }        
}

Then you can reuse this whenever you have the need:

foreach (var pair in columnList.PairUp(currentRow.Split(separatorChar),
             (column, value) => new { column, value })
{
    // Do something
}

Alternatively you could create a generic Pair type, and get rid of the projection parameter in the PairUp method.

EDIT:

With the Pair type, the calling code would look like this:

foreach (var pair in columnList.PairUp(currentRow.Split(separatorChar))
{
    // column = pair.First, value = pair.Second
}

That looks about as simple as you can get. Yes, you need to put the utility method somewhere, as reusable code. Hardly a problem in my view. Now for multiple arrays...

If the arrays are of different types, we have a problem. You can't express an arbitrary number of type parameters in a generic method/type declaration - you could write versions of PairUp for as many type parameters as you wanted, just like there are Action and Func delegates for up to 4 delegate parameters - but you can't make it arbitrary.

If the values will all be of the same type, however - and if you're happy to stick to arrays - it's easy. (Non-arrays is okay too, but you can't do the length checking ahead of time.) You could do this:

public static IEnumerable<T[]> Zip<T>(params T[][] sources)
{
    // (Insert error checking code here for null or empty sources parameter)

    int length = sources[0].Length;
    if (!sources.All(array => array.Length == length))
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("Arrays must all be of the same length");
    }

    for (int i=0; i < length; i++)
    {
        // Could do this bit with LINQ if you wanted
        T[] result = new T[sources.Length];
        for (int j=0; j < result.Length; j++)
        {
             result[j] = sources[j][i];
        }
        yield return result;
    }
}

Then the calling code would be:

foreach (var array in Zip(columns, row, whatevers))
{
    // column = array[0]
    // value = array[1]
    // whatever = array[2]
}

This involves a certain amount of copying, of course - you're creating an array each time. You could change that by introducing another type like this:

public struct Snapshot<T>
{
    readonly T[][] sources;
    readonly int index;

    public Snapshot(T[][] sources, int index)
    {
        this.sources = sources;
        this.index = index;
    }

    public T this[int element]
    {
        return sources[element][index];
    }
}

This would probably be regarded as overkill by most though ;)

I could keep coming up with all kinds of ideas, to be honest... but the basics are:

• With a little bit of reusable work, you can make the calling code nicer
• For arbitrary combinations of types you'll have to do each number of parameters (2, 3, 4...) separately due to the way generics works
• If you're happy to use the same type for each part, you can do better