C# – Optimize Code by using yield or changing algorithm

c++linqlinq-to-xmloptimizationyield

The code below works but I want to optimize the code using yield or by changing algorithm.

public IEnumerable<Book> GetAuthorWithBookName(string keyword)
{
    var bookAndAuthorList = new List<Book>();
    List<Author> AuthorNameList = getAuthorName(keyword);
    foreach (var author in AuthorNameList)
    {
        XmlNode booksNames = getBook(author);
        XDocument XDOCbooksNames = XDocument.Parse(booksNames.OuterXml);

        var bookNameList = (
            from x1 in XDOCbooksNames.Descendants("Books")
            select x1.Elements("book").Select(g => g.Attribute("name").Value))
            .ToList();
        foreach (var bookName in bookNameList)
        {
            bookAndAuthorList.Add(new Book()
            {
                authorName = author.authorName,
                bookName = bookName
            });
        }
    }
    return bookAndAuthorList;
}

public class Book
{
    public string authorName { get; set; }
    public string bookName { get; set; }
}

Best Solution

As a quick win, you can remove the .ToList() call. All you're doing is enumerate items, so there's no need to do that. Similarly, there's no need to create bookAndAutherList.

Eventually I think you can strip it down to this:

public IEnumerable<Book> GetAuthorWithBookName(string keyword)
{
    return from author in getAuthorName(keyword)
           let book = getBook(author)
           from xmlBook in XDocument.Parse(book.OuterXml).Descendants("Books")
           select new Book
           {
               authorName = author.AuthorName,
               bookName = xmlBook.Attribute("name").Value
           };
}

Related Solutions

C# – the yield keyword used for in C#

The yield contextual keyword actually does quite a lot here.

The function returns an object that implements the IEnumerable<object> interface. If a calling function starts foreaching over this object, the function is called again until it "yields". This is syntactic sugar introduced in C# 2.0. In earlier versions you had to create your own IEnumerable and IEnumerator objects to do stuff like this.

The easiest way understand code like this is to type-in an example, set some breakpoints and see what happens. Try stepping through this example:

public void Consumer()
{
    foreach(int i in Integers())
    {
        Console.WriteLine(i.ToString());
    }
}

public IEnumerable<int> Integers()
{
    yield return 1;
    yield return 2;
    yield return 4;
    yield return 8;
    yield return 16;
    yield return 16777216;
}

When you step through the example, you'll find the first call to Integers() returns 1. The second call returns 2 and the line yield return 1 is not executed again.

Here is a real-life example:

public IEnumerable<T> Read<T>(string sql, Func<IDataReader, T> make, params object[] parms)
{
    using (var connection = CreateConnection())
    {
        using (var command = CreateCommand(CommandType.Text, sql, connection, parms))
        {
            command.CommandTimeout = dataBaseSettings.ReadCommandTimeout;
            using (var reader = command.ExecuteReader())
            {
                while (reader.Read())
                {
                    yield return make(reader);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

C# – Should ‘using’ directives be inside or outside the namespace

There is actually a (subtle) difference between the two. Imagine you have the following code in File1.cs:

// File1.cs
using System;
namespace Outer.Inner
{
    class Foo
    {
        static void Bar()
        {
            double d = Math.PI;
        }
    }
}

Now imagine that someone adds another file (File2.cs) to the project that looks like this:

// File2.cs
namespace Outer
{
    class Math
    {
    }
}

The compiler searches Outer before looking at those using directives outside the namespace, so it finds Outer.Math instead of System.Math. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?), Outer.Math has no PI member, so File1 is now broken.

This changes if you put the using inside your namespace declaration, as follows:

// File1b.cs
namespace Outer.Inner
{
    using System;
    class Foo
    {
        static void Bar()
        {
            double d = Math.PI;
        }
    }
}

Now the compiler searches System before searching Outer, finds System.Math, and all is well.

Some would argue that Math might be a bad name for a user-defined class, since there's already one in System; the point here is just that there is a difference, and it affects the maintainability of your code.

It's also interesting to note what happens if Foo is in namespace Outer, rather than Outer.Inner. In that case, adding Outer.Math in File2 breaks File1 regardless of where the using goes. This implies that the compiler searches the innermost enclosing namespace before it looks at any using directive.

Best Solution

Related Solutions

C# – the yield keyword used for in C#

C# – Should ‘using’ directives be inside or outside the namespace

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