Difference Between IEnumerable, ICollection And IList

In this article we will learn about Difference Between IEnumerable ICollection And IList Interface. Please read our previous article WPF Metro Window with MahApps.Metro.

IEnumerable, ICollection and IList are interfaces in the .Net Framework. IEnumerable is the base of the ICollection and IList interfaces. All these interfaces provide various functionalities and are useful in various cases.

Difference Between IEnumerable, ICollection And IList

An IList is an ICollection that can be accessed by index. An ICollection is an IEnumerable with easy access to things like Add , Remove , and Count . An IEnumerable is anything that can be enumerated, even if the list of those things doesn’t exist until you enumerate it.

IEnumerable Interface

There are two different interfaces defined in the .NET base class library.There is a non-generic IEnumerable interface and there is a generic type-safe IEnumerable<T> interface.

• IEnumerable Interface exists in System.Collections Namespace.
• IEnumerable interface is used when we want to iterate among our classes using a foreach loop.
• IEnumerable can move forward only over a collection, it can’t move backward and between the items.
• IEnumerable is best to query data from in-memory collections like List, Array etc.
• IEnumerable is used for LINQ to Object and LINQ to XML queries.
• IEnumerable supports deferred execution.

IEnumerable

IEnumerable interface contains only a single method definition i.e.GetEnumerator() and The GetEnumerator method must return an instance of an object of a class which implements the IEnumerator interface.

public interface IEnumerable

• Initially, the enumerator is positioned before the first element in the collection. You must call the MoveNext method to advance the enumerator to the first element of the collection before reading the value of Current; otherwise, Current is undefined.
• Current returns the same object until either MoveNext or Reset is called.
• MoveNext sets Current to the next element.
• The Reset method is provided for COM interoperability.
• If MoveNext passes the end of the collection, the enumerator is positioned after the last element in the collection and MoveNext returns false. When the enumerator is at this position, subsequent calls to MoveNext also return false. If the last call to MoveNext returned false, calling Current throws an exception.
• To set Current to the first element of the collection again, you can call Reset
• An enumerator remains valid as long as the collection remains unchanged.
• If changes are made to the collection, such as adding, modifying, or deleting elements, the enumerator is irrecoverably invalidated and the next call to MoveNext or Reset throws an InvalidOperationException.
• If the collection is modified between MoveNext and Current, Current returns the element that it is set to, even if the enumerator is already invalidated.

IEnumerable<T>

• IEnumerable<T> is a generic type-safe interface and is located in the System.Collections.Genericnamespace.
• IEnumerable<T> inherits from IEnumerable Interface.
• IEnumerable<T> defines a single method GetEnumerator which returns an instance of an object that implements the IEnumerator<T> interface. 

public interface IEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable
{
 IEnumerator GetEnumerator();
}

ICollection Interface

There are two different interfaces defined in the .NET base class library.There is a non-generic ICollection  interface and there is a generic type-safe ICollection interface

• The ICollection Interface is inherited from the IEnumerable interface which means that any class that implements the ICollection Interface can also be enumerated using a foreach loop.
• In the IEnumerable Interface we don’t know how many elements there are in the collection whereas the ICollection interface gives us this extra property for getting the count of items in the collection

ICollection

 Defines size, enumerators, and synchronization methods for all non-generic collections.

public interface ICollection : IEnumerable
{
    int Count { get; }  
    bool IsSynchronized { get; }
    Object SyncRoot { get; } 
    void CopyTo(Array array, int index);
}

The ICollection interface contains the following properties:

• Count Property
• IsSynchronized Property
• SyncRoot Property
• CopyTo Method

The Count property is used for maintaining the count of elements in the list.
The IsSysnchronized and SyncRoot properties help to make the collection thread-safe.
The CopyTo method copies the entire collection into an array.
The generic version of this interface provides Add and Remove methods also.

ICollection<T>

This is the generic version of ICollection Interface. Defines methods to manipulate generic collections.

public interface ICollection : IEnumerable, IEnumerable
{
    int Count { get; }
    bool IsReadOnly { get; } 
    void Add(T item);
    void Clear();
    bool Contains(T item);
    void CopyTo(T[] array, int arrayIndex);
    bool Remove(T item);
}

IList Interface

• List exists in System.Collections Namespace.
• IList Interface implements both IEnumerable and ICollection Interface.
• IList is used to access an element in a specific position/index in a list.
• Like IEnumerable, IList is also best to query data from in-memory collections like List, Array etc.
• IList is useful when you want to Add or remove items from the list.
• IList can find out the no of elements in the collection without iterating the collection.
• IList supports deferred execution.
• IList doesn’t support further filtering.

The IList also has generic and non generic version.i.e. IList and IList

IList

• IList implements ICollection and IEnumerable.
• IList  provides method definitions for adding and removing elements and to clear the collection.
• IList  provides methods for handling the positioning of the elements within the collection.
• IList provides an object indexer to allow the user to access the collection with square brackets

public interface IList : ICollection, IEnumerable
{
    bool IsFixedSize { get; }
    bool IsReadOnly { get; }
    Object this[int index] { get; set; } 
    int Add(Object value);
    void Clear();
    bool Contains(Object value);
    int IndexOf(Object value);
    void Insert(int index, Object value);
    void Remove(Object value);
    void RemoveAt(int index);
}

The IList interface contains the following:

1. IsFixedSize Property
2. IsReadOnly Property
3. Indexer
4. Add Method
5. Clear Method
6. Contains Method
7. Indexof Method
8. Insert Method
9. Remove Method
10. RemoveAt Method

The IList interface has one indexer by which we can access any element by its position and can insert an element and remove an element at any position.

IList<T>

• List<T> is a generic type-safe interface and is located in the System.Collections.Genericnamespace.
• IList<T> inherits from IEnumerable and ICollection Interface.

public interface IList : ICollection, IEnumerable, IEnumerable
{
    T this[int index] { get; set; }
     int IndexOf(T item);
    void Insert(int index, T item);
    void RemoveAt(int index);
}

References

Codeproject

Conclusion

So in this article we will learnt Difference Between IEnumerable, ICollection And IList. mosbet.group