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Recursion with yield return elements order in tree

Asked 2012-02-03T09:51:07.443
13

I have a recursive function that returns all subtree nodes, given the starting root node.

private IEnumerable<Node> getAllNodesRecursively(Node subnode)
{
    foreach (Node node in subnode.Nodes)
        getAllNodesRecursively(node);

    yield return subnode;
}

For the following tree structure:

A
|
+--B
|
+--C
|  |
|  +--D
|
+--E

When I try to iterate as such:

foreach (Node n in getAllNodesRecursively(a))
{
    Console.WriteLine(n);
}

the function returns the only the A value.

I wish to use yield-return with recursion and retrieve elements in the Preorder (A, B, C, D, E in this example).

(If I put the yield return before the foreach, the foreach would never happen).

Is this possible?

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20

Have you tried something like:

private IEnumerable<Node> getAllNodesRecursively(Node subnode) 
{ 
    // Return the parent before its children
    yield return subnode; 

    foreach (Node node in subnode.Nodes) 
    {
        foreach(Node n in getAllNodesRecursively(node))
        {
            yield return n;
        }
    }
} 

Your implementation is calling getAllNodesRecursively recursively, but ignoring its return value.

answered 2012-02-03T10:15:43.977

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