What are your favorite extension methods for C#? (codeplex.com/extensionoverflow)

The extension method:

public static void AddRange<T, S>(this ICollection<T> list, params S[] values)
    where S : T
{
    foreach (S value in values)
        list.Add(value);
}

The method applies for all types and lets you add a range of items to a list as parameters.

Example:

var list = new List<Int32>();
list.AddRange(5, 4, 8, 4, 2);

ForEach for IEnumerables

public static class FrameworkExtensions
{
    // a map function
    public static void ForEach<T>(this IEnumerable<T> @enum, Action<T> mapFunction)
    {
        foreach (var item in @enum) mapFunction(item);
    }
}

Naive example:

var buttons = GetListOfButtons() as IEnumerable<Button>;

// click all buttons
buttons.ForEach(b => b.Click());

Cool example:

// no need to type the same assignment 3 times, just
// new[] up an array and use foreach + lambda
// everything is properly inferred by csc :-)
new { itemA, itemB, itemC }
    .ForEach(item => {
        item.Number = 1;
        item.Str = "Hello World!";
    });

Note:

This is not like Select because Select expects your function to return something as for transforming into another list.

ForEach simply allows you to execute something for each of the items without any transformations/data manipulation.

I made this so I can program in a more functional style and I was surprised that List has a ForEach while IEnumerable does not.

Put this in the codeplex project

Find more examples here: www.extensionmethod.net

Timespan-related extensions like:

public static TimeSpan Seconds(this int seconds)
{
  return TimeSpan.FromSeconds(seconds);
}

public static TimeSpan Minutes(this int minutes)
{
  return TimeSpan.FromMinutes(minutes);
}

That allow to use:

1.Seconds()
20.Minutes()

Lock extensions like:

public static IDisposable GetReadLock(this ReaderWriterLockSlim slimLock)
{
  slimLock.EnterReadLock();
  return new DisposableAction(slimLock.ExitReadLock);
}

public static IDisposable GetWriteLock(this ReaderWriterLockSlim slimLock)
{
  slimLock.EnterWriteLock();
  return new DisposableAction(slimLock.ExitWriteLock);
}

public static IDisposable GetUpgradeableReadLock(this ReaderWriterLockSlim slimLock)
{
  slimLock.EnterUpgradeableReadLock();
  return new DisposableAction(slimLock.ExitUpgradeableReadLock);
}

That allow to use locks like:

using (lock.GetUpgradeableReadLock())
{
  // try read
  using (lock.GetWriteLock())
  {
    //do write
  }
}

And many other from the Lokad Shared Libraries

I use these in my Silverlight projects:

public static void Show(this UIElement element)
{
    element.Visibility = Visibility.Visible;
}

public static void Hide(this UIElement element)
{
    element.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed;
}

Binary search :

public static T BinarySearch<T, TKey>(this IList<T> list, Func<T, TKey> keySelector, TKey key)
        where TKey : IComparable<TKey>
{
    int min = 0;
    int max = list.Count;
    int index = 0;
    while (min < max)
    {
        int mid = (max + min) / 2;
        T midItem = list[mid];
        TKey midKey = keySelector(midItem);
        int comp = midKey.CompareTo(key);
        if (comp < 0)
        {
            min = mid + 1;
        }
        else if (comp > 0)
        {
            max = mid - 1;
        }
        else
        {
            return midItem;
        }
    }
    if (min == max &&
        keySelector(list[min]).CompareTo(key) == 0)
    {
        return list[min];
    }
    throw new InvalidOperationException("Item not found");
}

Usage (assuming that the list is sorted by Id) :

var item = list.BinarySearch(i => i.Id, 42);

The fact that it throws an InvalidOperationException may seem strange, but that's what Enumerable.First does when there's no matching item.

I just went through all 4 pages of this so far, and I was rather surprised that I didn't see this way to shorten a check for InvokeRequired:

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

/// <summary>
/// Extension methods acting on Control objects.
/// </summary>
internal static class ControlExtensionMethods
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Invokes the given action on the given control's UI thread, if invocation is needed.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="control">Control on whose UI thread to possibly invoke.</param>
    /// <param name="action">Action to be invoked on the given control.</param>
    public static void MaybeInvoke(this Control control, Action action)
    {
        if (control != null && control.InvokeRequired)
        {
            control.Invoke(action);
        }
        else
        {
            action();
        }
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Maybe Invoke a Func that returns a value.
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T">Return type of func.</typeparam>
    /// <param name="control">Control on which to maybe invoke.</param>
    /// <param name="func">Function returning a value, to invoke.</param>
    /// <returns>The result of the call to func.</returns>
    public static T MaybeInvoke<T>(this Control control, Func<T> func)
    {
        if (control != null && control.InvokeRequired)
        {
            return (T)(control.Invoke(func));
        }
        else
        {
            return func();
        }
    }
}

Usage:

myForm.MaybeInvoke(() => this.Text = "Hello world");

// Sometimes the control might be null, but that's okay.
var dialogResult = this.Parent.MaybeInvoke(() => MessageBox.Show(this, "Yes or no?", "Choice", MessageBoxButtons.YesNo));

Simple but nicer than "Enumerable.Range", IMHO:

/// <summary>
/// Replace "Enumerable.Range(n)" with "n.Range()":
/// </summary>
/// <param name="n">iterations</param>
/// <returns>0..n-1</returns>
public static IEnumerable<int> Range(this int n)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
        yield return i;
}

FindControl with built-in casting:

public static T FindControl<T>(this Control control, string id) where T : Control
{
    return (T)control.FindControl(id);
}

It's nothing amazing, but I feel it makes for cleaner code.

// With extension method
container.FindControl<TextBox>("myTextBox").SelectedValue = "Hello world!";

// Without extension method
((TextBox)container.FindControl("myTextBox")).SelectedValue = "Hello world!";

This can be put this in the codeplex project, if so desired

I am sure this has been done before, but I find myself using this method (and simpler derivatives) often:

public static bool CompareEx(this string strA, string strB, CultureInfo culture, bool ignoreCase)
{
    return string.Compare(strA, strB, ignoreCase, culture) == 0;
}

You can write it in a number of ways, but I like it because it very quickly unifies my approach to comparing strings while saving me lines of code (or characters of code).

I like these NUnit Assert extensions: http://svn.caffeine-it.com/openrasta/trunk/src/Rasta.Testing/AssertExtensions.cs

Equivalent to Python's Join method:

/// <summary>
/// same as python 'join'
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">list type</typeparam>
/// <param name="separator">string separator </param>
/// <param name="list">list of objects to be ToString'd</param>
/// <returns>a concatenated list interleaved with separators</returns>
static public string Join<T>(this string separator, IEnumerable<T> list)
{
    var sb = new StringBuilder();
    bool first = true;

    foreach (T v in list)
    {
        if (!first)
            sb.Append(separator);
        first = false;

        if (v != null)
            sb.Append(v.ToString());
    }

    return sb.ToString();
}

Several times I found myself wanting something like, I think, Groovy's "Safe navigation".

From http://groovy.codehaus.org/Statements:

If you are walking a complex object graph and don't want to have NullPointerExceptions thrown you can use the ?. operator rather than . to perform your navigation.

def foo = null def bar = foo?.something?.myMethod() assert bar == null

So, do you think is a good idea adding an extension method for it? Something like:

obj.SafelyNavigate(x => x.SomeProperty.MaybeAMethod().AnotherProperty);

I think it would be nice even if it can also bring some trouble.

If you think it's a good idea:

• What would you think it should happen for value types?, return default? throw?, disable it by generic constraint?.
• Swallowing NullReferenceException to implement it would be too risky?, What do you propose?, Walking the expression tree executing every call or member access seems difficult and kind of overkill (if at all possible) doesn't it?.

Maybe it's just a bad idea :D, but I see it like something that can be useful if done right. If there's nothing like it and you think it holds some value, I may give it a shot and edit the answer afterwards.

Whitespace normalization is rather useful, especially when dealing with user input:

namespace Extensions.String
{
    using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

    public static class Extensions
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Normalizes whitespace in a string.
        /// Leading/Trailing whitespace is eliminated and
        /// all sequences of internal whitespace are reduced to
        /// a single SP (ASCII 0x20) character.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="s">The string whose whitespace is to be normalized</param>
        /// <returns>a normalized string</returns>
        public static string NormalizeWS( this string @this )
        {
            string src        = @this ?? "" ;
            string normalized = rxWS.Replace( src , m =>{
                  bool isLeadingTrailingWS = ( m.Index == 0 || m.Index+m.Length == src.Length ? true : false ) ;
                  string p                 = ( isLeadingTrailingWS ? "" : " " ) ;
                  return p ;
                }) ;

            return normalized ;

        }
        private static Regex rxWS = new Regex( @"\s+" ) ;
    }
}

This one is not fully baked as we just came up with it this morning. It will generate a full class definition for a Type. Useful for situations where you have a a large class and want to create a subset or full definition but don't have access to it. For example, to store the object in a database etc.

public static class TypeExtensions
{
    public static string GenerateClassDefinition(this Type type)
    {
        var properties = type.GetFields();
        var sb = new StringBuilder();
        var classtext = @"private class $name
        {
         $props}";

        foreach (var p in GetTypeInfo(type))
        {
            sb.AppendFormat("  public {0} {1} ", p.Item2, p.Item1).AppendLine(" { get; set; }");
        }

        return classtext.Replace("$name", type.Name).Replace("$props", sb.ToString());
    }

    #region Private Methods
    private static List<Tuple<string, string>> GetTypeInfo(Type type)
    {
        var ret = new List<Tuple<string, string>>();
        var fields = type.GetFields();
        var props = type.GetProperties();

        foreach(var p in props) ret.Add(new Tuple<string, string>(p.Name, TranslateType(p.PropertyType)));    
        foreach(var f in fields) ret.Add(new Tuple<string, string>(f.Name, TranslateType(f.FieldType)));

        return ret;
    }


    private static string TranslateType(Type input)
    {
        string ret;

        if (Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(input) != null)
        {
            ret = string.Format("{0}?", TranslateType(Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(input)));
        }
        else
        {
            switch (input.Name)
            {
                case "Int32": ret = "int"; break;
                case "Int64": ret = "long"; break;
                case "IntPtr": ret = "long"; break;
                case "Boolean": ret = "bool"; break;
                case "String":
                case "Char":
                case "Decimal":
                    ret