IEnumerable vs. IEnumerator

IEnumerable announces the signature of a method:

GetEnumerator()

which returns an instance that implemented IEnumerator.

IEnumerator announces the signatures of 3 methods:

Current()

MoveNext()

and Reset()

which helps the foreach loop to enumerate the contents of the collection.

For example,

foreach (var p in persons)
{
   Console.WriteLine(p); 
} 

will be compiled into the following code...

IEnumerator < Person >   enumerator = persons.GetEnumerator(); 
while (enumerator.MoveNext()) 
{
   Person p = enumerator.Current;
   Console.WriteLine(p); 
} 

The collection `persons' has to implement GetEnumerator() which returns an instance that implements MoveNext() and Current(), and Reset() although not shown in the example.