Question

I have a class A { public float Score; ... } and an IEnumerable<A> items and would like to find the A which has minimal score.

Using items.Min(x => x.Score) gives the minimal score and not the instance with minimal score.

How can I get the instance by iterating only once through my data?

Edit: So long there are three main solutions:

• Writing an extension method (proposed by Svish). Pros: Easy to use and evaluates Score only once per item. Cons: Needs an extension method. (I choosed this solution for my application.)

• Using Aggregate (proposed by Daniel Renshaw). Pros: Uses a built-in LINQ method. Cons: Slightly obfuscated to the untrained eye and calls evaluator more than once.

• Implementing IComparable (proposed by cyberzed). Pros: Can use Linq.Min directly. Cons: Fixed to one comparer – can not freely choose comparer when performing the minimum computation.

Answer 1

Have a look at the MinBy extension method in MoreLINQ (created by Jon Skeet, now principally maintained by Atif Aziz).

• MinBy documentation

• MinBy source code (it’s pretty straightforward and has no dependencies on other files).