LINQ to Object Part #4: Querying Non- IEnumerable collections

Objective

In this article, I am going to show, how we could apply LINQ to query non-IEnumerable<T> Collections.

I have created a class for my explanation purpose. Student class is having details of students.

Student.cs

namespace LINQtoOBJECT1
{
    public  class Student
    {
         public int RollNumber { get; set; }
         public string Name { get; set; }
         public int Section { get; set; }
         public int HostelNumber { get; set; }
    }
}

To create ArrayList of Student, I am creating a static function. This static function will return ArraList of student.

Function to return ArrayList of students.

public static ArrayList   GetStudentAsArrayList()
{
    ArrayList  students = new ArrayList
    {
        new Student() { RollNumber = 1,Name ="Alex " , Section = 1 ,HostelNumber=1 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 2,Name ="Jonty " , Section = 2 ,HostelNumber=2 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 3,Name ="Samba " , Section = 3 ,HostelNumber=1 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 4,Name ="Donald " , Section = 3 ,HostelNumber=2 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 5,Name ="Kristen " , Section = 2 ,HostelNumber=1 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 6,Name ="Mark " , Section = 1 ,HostelNumber=2},
        new Student() { RollNumber = 7,Name ="Gibbs " , Section = 1 ,HostelNumber=1 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 8,Name ="Peterson " , Section = 2 ,HostelNumber=2 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 9,Name ="collingwood " , Section = 3 ,HostelNumber=1 },
        new Student() { RollNumber = 10,Name ="Brian " , Section = 3 ,HostelNumber=2 }
    };
    return students;
}

Now when I tried to query the returned ArrayList using LINQ, I got compile time error. Because ArrayList does not implement interface IQueryable and it is not IEnumerable<T> collection.

Below code gave a compile time error

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ArrayList lstStudents = GetStudentAsArrayList();
        var res = from r in lstStudents select r;          
        Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

Error is as shown below, 



Above error cause because LINQ by default only query against IEnumerable<T> collections.

So , how to query an ArrayList? Here Range variable comes into action.  If I modify the above query as below ,  I would be able to query LINQ against a non IEnumerable<T> collection.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        ArrayList lstStudents = GetStudentAsArrayList();
        var res = from  Student   r in lstStudents select r;
        foreach (Student s in res)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(s.Name);
        }
       Console.ReadKey();
    }
}

I am using Student as range variable. And we will get output as below .In above code I am using Student the class in ArrayList as range variable. 



Conclusion

In this article, I discussed how to query against non IEnumerable<T> collection.  Thanks for reading.