LINQ: Implementing The SkipLastWhile Operator

Following my last posts (>)(>), in this post I’ll introduce the implementation of the SkipLastWhile operator.

The SkipLastWhile returns all but the last contiguous elements from a a sequence that satisfy the specified criteria and is implemented as the SkipLastWhile extension methods:

public static IEnumerable<TSource> SkipLastWhile<TSource>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, bool> predicate)

public static IEnumerable<TSource> SkipLastWhile<TSource>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, int, bool> predicate)

The implementation of these methods is very simple. We start with an empty buffer and buffer every item that satisfies the criteria implemented by a predicate. Whenever an item doesn’t satisfy the criteria, all buffered items are yield, the buffer is cleared and the the item that doesn’t satisfy the criteria is yield:

var buffer = new List<TSource>();

foreach (var item in source)
{
    if (predicate(item))
    {
        buffer.Add(item);
    }
    else
    {
        if (buffer.Count > 0)
        {
            foreach (var bufferedItem in buffer)
            {
                yield return bufferedItem;
            }

            buffer.Clear();
        }

        yield return item;
    }
}

The overload that takes in account the index of the item only differs in the call the predicate that implements the criteria:

var buffer = new List<TSource>();
var idx = 0;

foreach (var item in source)
{
    if (predicate(item, idx++))
    {
        buffer.Add(item);
    }
    else
    {
        if (buffer.Count > 0)
        {
            foreach (var bufferedItem in buffer)
            {
                yield return bufferedItem;
            }

            buffer.Clear();
        }

        yield return item;
    }
}

You can find the complete implementation of this operator (and more) CodePlex project for LINQ utilities and operators: PauloMorgado.Linq