MissedWhereOpportunity.qhelp

<!DOCTYPE qhelp PUBLIC
  "-//Semmle//qhelp//EN"
  "qhelp.dtd">
<qhelp>
<overview>
<p>Programmers sometimes need to iterative over a filtered version of a sequence, rather than the 
sequence itself. For example, you might want to print out only the numbers in the range [1,10] that 
are even. One standard way of doing this is to write a loop that iterates over the whole sequence, 
testing the variable each iteration to determine whether or not it is even. This is often written 
using either <code>if(!condition(var)) continue;</code> as the initial statement in the loop, or by 
enclosing the entire loop body with <code>if(condition(var))</code>.</p>

</overview>
<recommendation>
<p>This pattern works well and is also available as the <code>Where</code> method in LINQ in C# 3.5 
and above. It is better to use a library method in preference to writing your own pattern unless you 
have a specific need for a custom version. In particular, this makes the code easier to read by 
expressing the intent better and by reducing the nesting depth of the code.</p>

</recommendation>
<example>
<p>This example shows two ways of iterating over a series of integers and only performing an action 
on the even ones.</p>
<sample src="MissedWhereOpportunity.cs" />

<p>This is far better expressed using the <code>Where</code> method.</p>
<sample src="MissedWhereOpportunityFix.cs" />

</example>
<references>

  <li>MSDN: <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.linq.enumerable.where.aspx">Enumerable.Where Method</a>.</li>


</references>
</qhelp>