CA1038: Enumerators should be strongly typed

Cause

A public or protected type implements System.Collections.IEnumerator but does not provide a strongly typed version of the IEnumerator.Current property. Types that are derived from the following types are exempt from this rule:

• System.Collections.CollectionBase

• System.Collections.DictionaryBase

• System.Collections.ReadOnlyCollectionBase

Rule Description

This rule requires IEnumerator implementations to also provide a strongly typed version of the Current property so that users are not required to cast the return value to the strong type when they use the functionality that is provided by the interface. This rule assumes that the type that implements IEnumerator contains a collection of instances of a type that is stronger than Object.

How to Fix Violations

To fix a violation of this rule, implement the interface property explicitly (declare it as IEnumerator.Current). Add a public strongly typed version of the property, declared as Current, and have it return a strongly typed object.

When to Suppress Warnings

Suppress a warning from this rule when you implement an object-based enumerator for use with an object-based collection, such as a binary tree. Types that extend the new collection will define the strongly typed enumerator and expose the strongly typed property.

Example

The following example demonstrates the correct way to implement a strongly typed IEnumerator type.

using System;
using System.Collections;
namespace DesignLibrary
{
   // The ExceptionEnumerator class implements a strongly typed enumerator  
   // for the ExceptionCollection type. 

   public class ExceptionEnumerator: IEnumerator
   {
      private IEnumerator myCollectionEnumerator;

      private ExceptionEnumerator () {}

      public ExceptionEnumerator(ExceptionCollection collection)
      {
         myCollectionEnumerator = collection.data.GetEnumerator();
      }

      // Implement the IEnumerator interface member explicitly. 
      object IEnumerator.Current
      {
         get 
         {
            return myCollectionEnumerator.Current;
         }
      }

      // Implement the strongly typed member. 
      public Exception Current
      {
         get 
         {
            return (Exception) myCollectionEnumerator.Current;
         }
      }

      // Implement the remaining IEnumerator members. 
      public bool MoveNext ()
      {
         return myCollectionEnumerator.MoveNext();
      }

      public void Reset ()
      {
         myCollectionEnumerator.Reset();
      }
   }

   public class ExceptionCollection : ICollection
   {   
      internal ArrayList data;

      ExceptionCollection()
      {
         data = new ArrayList();
      }

      // Provide the explicit interface member for ICollection. 
      void ICollection.CopyTo(Array array, int index)
      {
         data.CopyTo(array, index);
      }

      // Provide the strongly typed member for ICollection. 
      public void CopyTo(Exception[] array, int index)
      {
         ((ICollection)this).CopyTo(array, index);
      }

      // Implement the rest of the ICollection members. 
      public int Count
      {
        get 
        {
           return data.Count;
        }
      }

      public object SyncRoot
      {
         get 
        {
           return this; 
        }
      }

      public bool IsSynchronized
      {
         get 
         {
            return false; 
         }
      }

      // The IEnumerable interface is implemented by ICollection.
      IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
      {
         return new ExceptionEnumerator(this);
      }

      public ExceptionEnumerator GetEnumerator()
      {
         return new ExceptionEnumerator(this);
      }
   }
}

Related Rules

CA1035: ICollection implementations have strongly typed members

CA1039: Lists are strongly typed

See Also

Reference

System.Collections.IEnumerator

System.Collections.CollectionBase

System.Collections.DictionaryBase

System.Collections.ReadOnlyCollectionBase