Is yield useful outside of LINQ?

Question

When ever I think I can use the yield keyword, I take a step back and look at how it will impact my project. I always end up returning a collection instead of yeilding becau

Answer 1

The System.Linq IEnumerable extensions are great, but sometime you want more. For example, consider the following extension:

public static class CollectionSampling
{
    public static IEnumerable Sample(this IEnumerable coll, int max)
    {
        var rand = new Random();
        using (var enumerator = coll.GetEnumerator());
        {
            while (enumerator.MoveNext())
            {
                yield return enumerator.Current; 
                int currentSample = rand.Next(max);
                for (int i = 1; i <= currentSample; i++)
                    enumerator.MoveNext();
            }
        }
    }    
}

Another interesting advantage of yielding is that the caller cannot cast the return value to the original collection type and modify your internal collection