c# - List<IEnumerator>.All(e => e.MoveNext()) doesn't move my enumerators on

Question

I'm trying to track down a bug in our code. I've boiled it down to the snippet below. In the example below I have a grid of ints (a list of rows), but I want to find the indexes of the columns that have a 1. The implementation of this is to create an enumerator for each row and step through each column in turn by keeping the enumerators in step.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var ints = new List<List<int>> {
            new List<int> {0, 0, 1},    // This row has a 1 at index 2
            new List<int> {0, 1, 0},    // This row has a 1 at index 1
            new List<int> {0, 0, 1}     // This row also has a 1 at index 2
        };
        var result = IndexesWhereThereIsOneInTheColumn(ints);

        Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", result)); // Expected: "1, 2"
        Console.ReadKey();
    }


    private static IEnumerable<int> IndexesWhereThereIsOneInTheColumn(
        IEnumerable<List<int>> myIntsGrid)
    {
        var enumerators = myIntsGrid.Select(c => c.GetEnumerator()).ToList();

        short i = 0;
        while (enumerators.All(e => e.MoveNext())) {
            if (enumerators.Any(e => e.Current == 1))
                yield return i;
            i++;

            if (i > 1000)
                throw new Exception("You have gone too far!!!");
        }
    }

}

However I have noticed that MoveNext() is not remembered each time around the while loop. MoveNext() always returns true, and Current is always 0. Is this a purposeful feature of Linq to make it more side effect free?

I noticed that this works:

    private static IEnumerable<int> IndexesWhereThereIsOneInTheColumn(
        IEnumerable<List<int>> myIntsGrid)
    {
        var enumerators = myIntsGrid.Select(c => 
            c.ToArray().GetEnumerator()).ToList(); // added ToArray() 

        short i = 0;
        while (enumerators.All(e => e.MoveNext())) {
            if (enumerators.Any(e => (int)e.Current == 1)) // added cast to int
                yield return i;
            i++;
        }
    }

So is this just a problem with List?

Answer 1

It is because the enumerator of List<T> is a struct whereas the enumerator of Array is a class.

So when you call Enumerable.All with the struct, copy of enumerator is made and passed as a parameter to Func since structs are copied by value. So e.MoveNext is called on the copy, not the original.

Try this:

Console.WriteLine(new List<int>().GetEnumerator().GetType().IsValueType);
Console.WriteLine(new int[]{}.GetEnumerator().GetType().IsValueType);

It prints:

True
False