Parallel iteration in C#?

Question

Is there a way to do foreach style iteration over parallel enumerables in C#? For subscriptable lists, I know one could use a regular for loop iterati

Answer 1

I wrote an implementation of EachParallel() from the .NET4 Parallel library. It is compatible with .NET 3.5: Parallel ForEach Loop in C# 3.5 Usage:

string[] names = { "cartman", "stan", "kenny", "kyle" };
names.EachParallel(name =>
{
    try
    {
        Console.WriteLine(name);
    }
    catch { /* handle exception */ }
});

Implementation:

/// 

/// Enumerates through each item in a list in parallel
/// 
public static void EachParallel(this IEnumerable list, Action action)
{
    // enumerate the list so it can't change during execution
    list = list.ToArray();
    var count = list.Count();

    if (count == 0)
    {
        return;
    }
    else if (count == 1)
    {
        // if there's only one element, just execute it
        action(list.First());
    }
    else
    {
        // Launch each method in it's own thread
        const int MaxHandles = 64;
        for (var offset = 0; offset < list.Count() / MaxHandles; offset++)
        {
            // break up the list into 64-item chunks because of a limitiation             // in WaitHandle
            var chunk = list.Skip(offset * MaxHandles).Take(MaxHandles);

            // Initialize the reset events to keep track of completed threads
            var resetEvents = new ManualResetEvent[chunk.Count()];

            // spawn a thread for each item in the chunk
            int i = 0;
            foreach (var item in chunk)
            {
                resetEvents[i] = new ManualResetEvent(false);
                ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(new WaitCallback((object data) =>
                {
                    int methodIndex = (int)((object[])data)[0];

                    // Execute the method and pass in the enumerated item
                    action((T)((object[])data)[1]);

                    // Tell the calling thread that we're done
                    resetEvents[methodIndex].Set();
                }), new object[] { i, item });
                i++;
            }

            // Wait for all threads to execute
            WaitHandle.WaitAll(resetEvents);
        }
    }
}