Is it possible to do start iterating from an element other than the first using foreach?

c# iterator ienumerable
inferno picture inferno · Jun 21, 2011 · Viewed 61.5k times · Source

I'm thinking about implementing IEnumerable for my custom collection (a tree) so I can use foreach to traverse my tree. However as far as I know foreach always starts from the first element of the collection. I would like to choose from which element foreach starts. Is it possible to somehow change the element from which foreach starts?

Answer

MoarCodePlz picture MoarCodePlz · Jun 21, 2011

Yes. Do the following:

Collection<string> myCollection = new Collection<string>;

foreach (string curString in myCollection.Skip(3))
    //Dostuff

Skip is an IEnumerable function that skips however many you specify starting at the current index. On the other hand, if you wanted to use only the first three you would use .Take:

foreach (string curString in myCollection.Take(3))

These can even be paired together, so if you only wanted the 4-6 items you could do:

foreach (string curString in myCollection.Skip(3).Take(3))

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