I’m sure one of the first exceptions any of us get as C# devs is when we try to iterate over a List (or other enumerable) and attempt to remove an item.

List<SomeObscureObject> objectsToBeFiltered = new List<SomeObscureObject>();
objectsToBeFiltered.Add(new SomeObscureObject{SomeObscureProperty = "Object 1"});
objectsToBeFiltered.Add(new SomeObscureObject{SomeObscureProperty = "Object 2"});
objectsToBeFiltered.Add(new SomeObscureObject{SomeObscureProperty = "Object 3"});
objectsToBeFiltered.Add(new SomeObscureObject{SomeObscureProperty = "Object 4"});

foreach (var obscureObject in objectsToBeFiltered)
{
	if(obscureObject.SomeObscureProperty == valueToBeRemoved)
		objectsToBeFiltered.Remove(obscureObject);
}

This results in the exception:

InvalidOperationException was unhandled. Collection was modified; enumeration operation may not execute.

The easy solution is just to create a temp collection, add the items to the temporary collection, and then remove them from the main collection. This seems so common that I just never thought there may be another solution.

List<SomeObscureObject> objectsToRemove = new List<SomeObscureObject>();
foreach (var obscureObject in objectsToBeFiltered)
{
	if(obscureObject.SomeObscureProperty == valueToBeRemoved)
		objectsToRemove.Add(obscureObject);
}

foreach (var obscureObject in objectsToRemove)
{
	objectsToBeFiltered.Remove(obscureObject);
}

While recently reading Eric Lippert’s blog I ended up down a rabbit hole to another blog where the blogger talked on this very same issue. Did you know that if you iterate over the collection backwards you won’t get this exception :).

for(int i = objectsToBeFiltered.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
	SomeObscureObject objectToCheck = objectsToBeFiltered[i];
	if(objectToCheck.SomeObscureProperty == valueToBeRemoved)
		objectsToBeFiltered.Remove(objectToCheck);
}

To read a few more suggestions head over to this post. There is also another great alternative using LINQ.

Thanks,
Brian