Question

I have a List<string[]> called myList:

   [0] "ABC" "Item Description Here" "Item Code Here"
   [1] "DEF" "Item Description Here" "Item Code Here"
   [3] etc, etc...

This is how I populated myList:

...
while (myReader.Read())
{
   string[] row = new string[myInt];

   for (int i = 0; i < myInt; i++)
   {
      row[i] = myReader[i].ToString();
   }

myList.Add(row);    
}
...

Now I need to search through myList and return a new List<string[]> called newList[] that contains 1 or more string[] where the first string matches a keyword (“ABC”, “DEF”, etc). How do I do that?

Answer 1

1) If you are searching only for one keyword:

var result = myList.Where(s=>s[0].Equals("\"ABC\"")).ToList();

2) If checklist contains same number of elements as myList:

List<string> checklist = new List<string>() {"ABC","DEF"};
var result = myList.Where((s,i)=>s[0].Equals(checklist[i])).ToList();

3) If it can match any keyword from a checklist than:

var result = myList.Where(s=>checklist.Contains(s[0])).ToList();