Iterate two Lists or Arrays with one ForEach statement in C#

Question

This is known as a Zip operation and will be supported in .NET 4.

With that, you would be able to write something like:

var numbers = new [] { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
var words = new [] { "one", "two", "three", "four" };

var numbersAndWords = numbers.Zip(words, (n, w) => new { Number = n, Word = w });
foreach(var nw in numbersAndWords)
{
    Console.WriteLine(nw.Number + nw.Word);
}

---

As an alternative to the anonymous type with the named fields, you can also save on braces by using a Tuple and its static Tuple.Create helper:

foreach (var nw in numbers.Zip(words, Tuple.Create)) 
{
    Console.WriteLine(nw.Item1 + nw.Item2);
}

If you don't want to wait for .NET 4.0, you could implement your own Zip method. The following works with .NET 2.0. You can adjust the implementation depending on how you want to handle the case where the two enumerations (or lists) have different lengths; this one continues to the end of the longer enumeration, returning the default values for missing items from the shorter enumeration.

static IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<T, U>> Zip<T, U>(IEnumerable<T> first, IEnumerable<U> second)
{
    IEnumerator<T> firstEnumerator = first.GetEnumerator();
    IEnumerator<U> secondEnumerator = second.GetEnumerator();

    while (firstEnumerator.MoveNext())
    {
        if (secondEnumerator.MoveNext())
        {
            yield return new KeyValuePair<T, U>(firstEnumerator.Current, secondEnumerator.Current);
        }
        else
        {
            yield return new KeyValuePair<T, U>(firstEnumerator.Current, default(U));
        }
    }
    while (secondEnumerator.MoveNext())
    {
        yield return new KeyValuePair<T, U>(default(T), secondEnumerator.Current);
    }
}

static void Test()
{
    IList<string> names = new string[] { "one", "two", "three" };
    IList<int> ids = new int[] { 1, 2, 3, 4 };

    foreach (KeyValuePair<string, int> keyValuePair in ParallelEnumerate(names, ids))
    {
        Console.WriteLine(keyValuePair.Key ?? "<null>" + " - " + keyValuePair.Value.ToString());
    }
}

You can use Union or Concat, the former removes duplicates, the later doesn't

foreach (var item in List1.Union(List1))
{
   //TODO: Real code goes here
}

foreach (var item in List1.Concat(List1))
{
   //TODO: Real code goes here
}

Since C# 7, you can use Tuples...

int[] nums = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
string[] words = { "one", "two", "three", "four" };

foreach (var tuple in nums.Zip(words, (x, y) => (x, y)))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{tuple.Item1}: {tuple.Item2}");
}

// or...
foreach (var tuple in nums.Zip(words, (x, y) => (Num: x, Word: y)))
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{tuple.Num}: {tuple.Word}");
}

Here's a custom IEnumerable<> extension method that can be used to loop through two lists simultaneously.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    public static class LinqCombinedSort
    {
        public static void Test()
        {
            var a = new[] {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f'};
            var b = new[] {3, 2, 1, 6, 5, 4};

            var sorted = from ab in a.Combine(b)
                         orderby ab.Second
                         select ab.First;

            foreach(char c in sorted)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(c);
            }
        }

        public static IEnumerable<Pair<TFirst, TSecond>> Combine<TFirst, TSecond>(this IEnumerable<TFirst> s1, IEnumerable<TSecond> s2)
        {
            using (var e1 = s1.GetEnumerator())
            using (var e2 = s2.GetEnumerator())
            {
                while (e1.MoveNext() && e2.MoveNext())
                {
                    yield return new Pair<TFirst, TSecond>(e1.Current, e2.Current);
                }
            }

        }


    }
    public class Pair<TFirst, TSecond>
    {
        private readonly TFirst _first;
        private readonly TSecond _second;
        private int _hashCode;

        public Pair(TFirst first, TSecond second)
        {
            _first = first;
            _second = second;
        }

        public TFirst First
        {
            get
            {
                return _first;
            }
        }

        public TSecond Second
        {
            get
            {
                return _second;
            }
        }

        public override int GetHashCode()
        {
            if (_hashCode == 0)
            {
                _hashCode = (ReferenceEquals(_first, null) ? 213 : _first.GetHashCode())*37 +
                            (ReferenceEquals(_second, null) ? 213 : _second.GetHashCode());
            }
            return _hashCode;
        }

        public override bool Equals(object obj)
        {
            var other = obj as Pair<TFirst, TSecond>;
            if (other == null)
            {
                return false;
            }
            return Equals(_first, other._first) && Equals(_second, other._second);
        }
    }

}