Ensure deferred execution will be executed only once or else

Question

I ran into a weird issue and I'm wondering what I should do about it.

I have this class that return a IEnumerable<MyClass> and it is a deferred execution. Right now, there are two possible consumers. One of them sorts the result.

See the following example :

public class SomeClass
{
    public IEnumerable<MyClass> GetMyStuff(Param givenParam)
    {
        double culmulativeSum = 0;
        return myStuff.Where(...)
                      .OrderBy(...)
                      .TakeWhile( o => 
                      {
                          bool returnValue = culmulativeSum  < givenParam.Maximum;
                          culmulativeSum += o.SomeNumericValue;
                          return returnValue; 
                      };
    }
}

Consumers call the deferred execution only once, but if they were to call it more than that, the result would be wrong as the culmulativeSum wouldn't be reset. I've found the issue by inadvertence with unit testing.

The easiest way for me to fix the issue would be to just add .ToArray() and get rid of the deferred execution at the cost of a little bit of overhead.

I could also add unit test in consumers class to ensure they call it only once, but that wouldn't prevent any new consumer coded in the future from this potential issue.

Another thing that came to my mind was to make subsequent execution throw. Something like

return myStuff.Where(...)
       .OrderBy(...)
       .TakeWhile(...)
       .ThrowIfExecutedMoreThan(1);

Obviously this doesn't exist. Would it be a good idea to implement such thing and how would you do it?

Otherwise, if there is a big pink elephant that I don't see, pointing it out will be appreciated. (I feel there is one because this question is about a very basic scenario :| )

EDIT :

Here is a bad consumer usage example :

public class ConsumerClass
{
    public void WhatEverMethod()
    {
        SomeClass some = new SomeClass();
        var stuffs = some.GetMyStuff(param);
        var nb = stuffs.Count(); //first deferred execution
        var firstOne = stuff.First(); //second deferred execution with the culmulativeSum not reset
    }
}

Answer 1

Ivan's answer is very fitting for the underlying issue in OP's example - but for the general case, I have approached this in the past using an extension method similar to the one below. This ensures that the Enumerable has a single evaluation but is also deferred:

public static IMemoizedEnumerable<T> Memoize<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source)
{
    return new MemoizedEnumerable<T>(source);
}

private class MemoizedEnumerable<T> : IMemoizedEnumerable<T>, IDisposable
{
    private readonly IEnumerator<T> _sourceEnumerator;
    private readonly List<T> _cache = new List<T>();

    public MemoizedEnumerable(IEnumerable<T> source)
    {
        _sourceEnumerator = source.GetEnumerator();
    }

    public IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator()
    {
        return IsMaterialized ? _cache.GetEnumerator() : Enumerate();
    }

    private IEnumerator<T> Enumerate()
    {
        foreach (var value in _cache)
        {
            yield return value;
        }

        while (_sourceEnumerator.MoveNext())
        {
            _cache.Add(_sourceEnumerator.Current);
            yield return _sourceEnumerator.Current;
        }

        _sourceEnumerator.Dispose();
        IsMaterialized = true;
    }

    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() => GetEnumerator();

    public List<T> Materialize()
    {
        if (IsMaterialized)
            return _cache;

        while (_sourceEnumerator.MoveNext())
        {
            _cache.Add(_sourceEnumerator.Current);
        }

        _sourceEnumerator.Dispose();
        IsMaterialized = true;

        return _cache;
    }

    public bool IsMaterialized { get; private set; }

    void IDisposable.Dispose()
    {
        if(!IsMaterialized)
            _sourceEnumerator.Dispose();
    }
}

public interface IMemoizedEnumerable<T> : IEnumerable<T>
{
    List<T> Materialize();

    bool IsMaterialized { get; }
}

Example Usage:

void Consumer()
{
    //var results = GetValuesComplex();
    //var results = GetValuesComplex().ToList();
    var results = GetValuesComplex().Memoize();

    if(results.Any(i => i == 3)) 
    {
        Console.WriteLine("\nFirst Iteration");
        //return; //Potential for early exit.
    }

    var last = results.Last(); // Causes multiple enumeration in naive case.        

    Console.WriteLine("\nSecond Iteration");
}

IEnumerable<int> GetValuesComplex()
{
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {
        //... complex operations ...        
        Console.Write(i + ", ");
        yield return i;
    }
}

• Naive: ✔ Deferred, ✘ Single enumeration.
• ToList: ✘ Deferred, ✔ Single enumeration.
• Memoize: ✔ Deferred, ✔ Single enumeration.

.

Edited to use the proper terminology and flesh out the implementation.

Answer 2

You can solve the incorrect result issue by simply turning your method into iterator:

double culmulativeSum = 0;
var query = myStuff.Where(...)
       .OrderBy(...)
       .TakeWhile(...);
foreach (var item in query) yield return item;

It can be encapsulated in a simple extension method:

public static class Iterators
{
    public static IEnumerable<T> Lazy<T>(Func<IEnumerable<T>> source)
    {
        foreach (var item in source())
            yield return item;
    }
}

Then all you need to do in such scenarios is to surround the original method body with Iterators.Lazy call, e.g.:

return Iterators.Lazy(() =>
{
    double culmulativeSum = 0;
    return myStuff.Where(...)
           .OrderBy(...)
           .TakeWhile(...);
});

Answer 3

You can use the following class:

public class JustOnceOrElseEnumerable<T> : IEnumerable<T>
{
    private readonly IEnumerable<T> decorated;

    public JustOnceOrElseEnumerable(IEnumerable<T> decorated)
    {
        this.decorated = decorated;
    }

    private bool CalledAlready;

    public IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator()
    {
        if (CalledAlready)
            throw new Exception("Enumerated already");

        CalledAlready = true;

        return decorated.GetEnumerator();
    }

    IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        if (CalledAlready)
            throw new Exception("Enumerated already");

        CalledAlready = true;

        return decorated.GetEnumerator();
    }
}

to decorate an enumerable so that it can only be enumerated once. After that it would throw an exception.

You can use this class like this:

return new JustOnceOrElseEnumerable(
   myStuff.Where(...)
   ...
   );

Please note that I do not recommend this approach because it violates the contract of the IEnumerable interface and thus the Liskov Substitution Principle. It is legal for consumers of this contract to assume that they can enumerate the enumerable as many times as they like.

Instead, you can use a cached enumerable that caches the result of enumeration. This ensures that the enumerable is only enumerated once and that all subsequent enumeration attempts would read from the cache. See this answer here for more information.