What is the best or most interesting use of Extension Methods you've seen?

Question

I'm starting to really love extension methods... I was wondering if anyone her has stumbled upon one that really blew their mind, or just found clever.

An example I wrote today:

Edited due to other users' comments:

public static IEnumerable<int> To(this int fromNumber, int toNumber) {
    while (fromNumber < toNumber) {
        yield return fromNumber;
        fromNumber++;
    }
}

This allows a for loop to be written as a foreach loop:

foreach (int x in 0.To(16)) {
    Console.WriteLine(Math.Pow(2, x).ToString());
}

I can't wait to see other examples! Enjoy!

Answer 1

The full solution is too large to put here, but I wrote a series of extension methods that would allow you to easily convert a DataTable into a CSV.

public static String ToCSV(this DataTable dataTable)
{
    return dataTable.ToCSV(null, COMMA, true);
}  

public static String ToCSV(this DataTable dataTable, String qualifier)
{
    return dataTable.ToCSV(qualifier, COMMA, true);
}

private static String ToCSV(this DataTable dataTable, String qualifier, String delimiter, Boolean includeColumnNames)
{
    if (dataTable == null) return null;

    if (qualifier == delimiter)
    {
        throw new InvalidOperationException(
            "The qualifier and the delimiter are identical. This will cause the CSV to have collisions that might result in data being parsed incorrectly by another program.");
    }

    var sbCSV = new StringBuilder();

    var delimiterToUse = delimiter ?? COMMA;

    if (includeColumnNames) 
        sbCSV.AppendLine(dataTable.Columns.GetHeaderLine(qualifier, delimiterToUse));

    foreach (DataRow row in dataTable.Rows)
    {
        sbCSV.AppendLine(row.ToCSVLine(qualifier, delimiterToUse));
    }

    return sbCSV.Length > 0 ? sbCSV.ToString() : null;
}

private static String ToCSVLine(this DataRow dataRow, String qualifier, String delimiter)
{
    var colCount = dataRow.Table.Columns.Count;
    var rowValues = new String[colCount];

    for (var i = 0; i < colCount; i++)
    {
        rowValues[i] = dataRow[i].Qualify(qualifier);
    }

    return String.Join(delimiter, rowValues);
}

private static String GetHeaderLine(this DataColumnCollection columns, String qualifier, String delimiter)
{
    var colCount = columns.Count;
    var colNames = new String[colCount];

    for (var i = 0; i < colCount; i++)
    {
        colNames[i] = columns[i].ColumnName.Qualify(qualifier);
    }

    return String.Join(delimiter, colNames);
}

private static String Qualify(this Object target, String qualifier)
{
    return qualifier + target + qualifier;
}

At the end of the day, you could call it like this:

someDataTable.ToCSV(); //Plain old CSV
someDataTable.ToCSV("\""); //Double quote qualifier
someDataTable.ToCSV("\"", "\t"); //Tab delimited