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[This documentation is for preview only, and is subject to change in later releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]
Supports a simple iteration over a nongeneric collection.
Namespace: System.Collections
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
Syntax
'Declaration
Public Interface IEnumerator
public interface IEnumerator
public interface class IEnumerator
type IEnumerator = interface end
public interface IEnumerator
The IEnumerator type exposes the following members.
Properties
| Name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
.gif "Public property") |
Current | Gets the current element in the collection. |
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Methods
| Name | Description | |
|---|---|---|
.gif "Public method") |
MoveNext | Advances the enumerator to the next element of the collection. |
|
Reset | Sets the enumerator to its initial position, which is before the first element in the collection. |
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Remarks
IEnumerator is the base interface for all nongeneric enumerators.
Initially, the enumerator is positioned before the first element in the collection. The Reset method also brings the enumerator back to this position. At this position, calling the Current property throws an exception. Therefore, you must call the MoveNext method to advance the enumerator to the first element of the collection before reading the value of Current.
Current returns the same object until either MoveNext or Reset is called. MoveNext sets Current to the next element.
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 followed by MoveNext.
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.
The enumerator does not have exclusive access to the collection; therefore, enumerating through a collection is intrinsically not a thread-safe procedure. Even when a collection is synchronized, other threads can still modify the collection, which causes the enumerator to throw an exception. To guarantee thread safety during enumeration, you can either lock the collection during the entire enumeration or catch the exceptions resulting from changes made by other threads.