How to check if IEnumerable is null or empty?

Question

I love string.IsNullOrEmpty method. I\'d love to have something that would allow the same functionality for IEnumerable. Is there such? Maybe some collection he

Answer 1

Since some resources are exhausted after one read, I thought why not combine the checks and the reads, instead of the traditional separate check, then read.

First we have one for the simpler check-for-null inline extension:

public static System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable ThrowOnNull(this System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable source, string paramName = null) => source ?? throw new System.ArgumentNullException(paramName ?? nameof(source));

var first = source.ThrowOnNull().First();

Then we have the little more involved (well, at least the way I wrote it) check-for-null-and-empty inline extension:

public static System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable ThrowOnNullOrEmpty(this System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable source, string paramName = null)
{
  using (var e = source.ThrowOnNull(paramName).GetEnumerator())
  {
    if (!e.MoveNext())
    {
      throw new System.ArgumentException(@"The sequence is empty.", paramName ?? nameof(source));
    }

    do
    {
      yield return e.Current;
    }
    while (e.MoveNext());
  }
}

var first = source.ThrowOnNullOrEmpty().First();

You can of course still call both without continuing the call chain. Also, I included the paramName, so that the caller may include an alternate name for the error if it's not "source" being checked, e.g. "nameof(target)".