Question

I want to check that an IEnumerable contains exactly one element. This snippet does work:

bool hasOneElement = seq.Count() == 1

However it’s not very efficient, as Count() will enumerate the entire list. Obviously, knowing a list is empty or contains more than 1 element means it’s not empty. Is there an extension method that has this short-circuiting behaviour?

Answer 1

This should do it:

public static bool ContainsExactlyOneItem<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source)
{
    using (IEnumerator<T> iterator = source.GetEnumerator())
    {
        // Check we've got at least one item
        if (!iterator.MoveNext())
        {
            return false;
        }
        // Check we've got no more
        return !iterator.MoveNext();
    }
}

You could elide this further, but I don’t suggest you do so:

public static bool ContainsExactlyOneItem<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source)
{
    using (IEnumerator<T> iterator = source.GetEnumerator())
    {
        return iterator.MoveNext() && !iterator.MoveNext();
    }
}

It’s the sort of trick which is funky, but probably shouldn’t be used in production code. It’s just not clear enough. The fact that the side-effect in the LHS of the && operator is required for the RHS to work appropriately is just nasty… while a lot of fun 😉

EDIT: I’ve just seen that you came up with exactly the same thing but for an arbitrary length. Your final return statement is wrong though – it should be return !en.MoveNext(). Here’s a complete method with a nicer name (IMO), argument checking and optimization for ICollection/ICollection<T>:

public static bool CountEquals<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, int count)
{
    if (source == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
    }
    if (count < 0)
    {
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("count",
                                              "count must not be negative");
    }
    // We don't rely on the optimizations in LINQ to Objects here, as
    // they have changed between versions.
    ICollection<T> genericCollection = source as ICollection<T>;
    if (genericCollection != null)
    {
        return genericCollection.Count == count;
    }
    ICollection nonGenericCollection = source as ICollection;
    if (nonGenericCollection != null)
    {
        return nonGenericCollection.Count == count;
    }
    // Okay, we're finally ready to do the actual work...
    using (IEnumerator<T> iterator = source.GetEnumerator())
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
        {
            if (!iterator.MoveNext())
            {
                return false;
            }
        }
        // Check we've got no more
        return !iterator.MoveNext();
    }
}

EDIT: And now for functional fans, a recursive form of CountEquals (please don’t use this, it’s only here for giggles):

public static bool CountEquals<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, int count)
{
    if (source == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
    }
    if (count < 0)
    {
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("count", 
                                              "count must not be negative");
    }
    using (IEnumerator<T> iterator = source.GetEnumerator())
    {
        return IteratorCountEquals(iterator, count);
    }
}

private static bool IteratorCountEquals<T>(IEnumerator<T> iterator, int count)
{
    return count == 0 ? !iterator.MoveNext()
        : iterator.MoveNext() && IteratorCountEquals(iterator, count - 1);
}

EDIT: Note that for something like LINQ to SQL, you should use the simple Count() approach – because that’ll allow it to be done at the database instead of after fetching actual results.