Generation Operators: Empty, Range, Repeat

LINQ includes generation operators DefaultIfEmpty, Empty, Range & Repeat. The Empty, Range & Repeat methods are not extension methods for IEnumerable or IQueryable but they are simply static methods defined in a static class Enumerable.

Empty

The Empty() method is not an extension method of IEnumerable or IQueryable like other LINQ methods. It is a static method included in Enumerable static class. So, you can call it the same way as other static methods like Enumerable.Empty<TResult>(). The Empty() method returns an empty collection of a specified type as shown below.

var emptyCollection1 = Enumerable.Empty<string>();
var emptyCollection2 = Enumerable.Empty<Student>();

Console.WriteLine("Count: {0} ", emptyCollection1.Count());
Console.WriteLine("Type: {0} ", emptyCollection1.GetType().Name );

Console.WriteLine("Count: {0} ",emptyCollection2.Count());
Console.WriteLine("Type: {0} ", emptyCollection2.GetType().Name );

Range

The Range() method returns a collection of IEnumerable<T> type with specified number of elements and sequential values starting from the first element.

var intCollection = Enumerable.Range(10, 10);
Console.WriteLine("Total Count: {0} ", intCollection.Count());

for(int i = 0; i < intCollection.Count(); i++)
    Console.WriteLine("Value at index {0} : {1}", i, intCollection.ElementAt(i));

In the above example, Enumerable.Range(10, 10) creates collection with 10 integer elements with the sequential values starting from 10. First parameter specifies the starting value of elements and second parameter specifies the number of elements to create.

Repeat

The Repeat() method generates a collection of IEnumerable<T> type with specified number of elements and each element contains same specified value.

var intCollection = Enumerable.Repeat<int>(10, 10);
Console.WriteLine("Total Count: {0} ", intCollection.Count());

for(int i = 0; i < intCollection.Count(); i++)
    Console.WriteLine("Value at index {0} : {1}", i, intCollection.ElementAt(i));

In the above example, Enumerable.Repeat<int>(10, 10) creates collection with 100 integer type elements with the repeated value of 10. First parameter specifies the values of all the elements and second parameter specifies the number of elements to create.