foreach with generic List, detecting first iteration when using value type

Question

When foreaching through a generic list I often want to do something different for the first element in the list:

List<object> objs = new List<object>
{
    new Object(),
    new Object(),
    new Object(),
    new Object()
};

foreach (object o in objs)
{
    if (o == objs.First())
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("First object - do something special");
    }
    else
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("object Do something else");
    }
}

This will output:

    First object - do something special
    object Do something else
    object Do something else
    object Do something else

This is all fine and dandy.

However if my generic list is of a value type, this approach will fail.

List<int> ints = new List<int> { 0, 0, 0, 0 };
foreach (int i in ints)
{
    if (i == ints.First())
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("First int - do something special");
    }
    else
    {
        System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("int Do something else");
    }
}

This will output:

    First int - do something special
    First int - do something special
    First int - do something special
    First int - do something special

Now I know I could recode this to add a boolean flag variable or traditional for loop, but I am wondering if there's any way to find out if a foreach loop is on the first iteration of its looping.

Answer 1

Well, you could code it using explicit iteration:

using(var iter = ints.GetEnumerator()) {
  if(iter.MoveNext()) {
     // do "first" with iter.Current

     while(iter.MoveNext()) {
       // do something with the rest of the data with iter.Current
     }
  }
}

The bool flag option (with foreach) is probably easier though... that is what I (almost) always do!

Another option would be LINQ:

if(ints.Any()) {
  var first = ints.First();
  // do something with first
}

foreach(var item in ints.Skip(1)) {
  // do something with the rest of them
}

The downside of the above is that it tries to look at the list 3 times... since we know it is a list, that is fine - but if all we had was an IEnumerable<T>, it would only be sensible to iterate it once (since the source might not be re-readable).

Answer 2

A while ago I wrote SmartEnumerable (part of MiscUtil) which lets you know if the current element is the first or last, as well as its index. That may help you... it's part of MiscUtil, which is open source - you can take just SmartEnumerable under the same licence, of course.

Sample code (c'n'p from the web page):

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

using MiscUtil.Collections;

class Example
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        List<string> list = new List<string>();
        list.Add("a");
        list.Add("b");
        list.Add("c");
        list.Add("d");
        list.Add("e");

        foreach (SmartEnumerable<string>.Entry entry in
                 new SmartEnumerable<string>(list))
        {
            Console.WriteLine ("{0,-7} {1} ({2}) {3}",
                               entry.IsLast  ? "Last ->" : "",
                               entry.Value,
                               entry.Index,
                               entry.IsFirst ? "<- First" : "");
        }
    }
}

EDIT: Note that while it works with reference types with distinct references, it'll still fail if you give it a list where the first reference crops up elsewhere in the list.