Question

Let’s take a class called Cls:

public class Cls
{
    public int SequenceNumber { get; set; }
    public int Value { get; set; }
}

Now, let’s populate some collection with following elements:

Sequence
Number      Value
========    =====
1           9
2           9
3           15
4           15
5           15
6           30
7           9

What I need to do, is to enumerate over Sequence Numbers and check if the next element has the same value. If yes, values are aggregated and so, desired output is as following:

Sequence    Sequence
Number      Number
From        To          Value
========    ========    =====
1           2           9
3           5           15
6           6           30
7           7           9

How can I perform this operation using LINQ query?

Answer 1

You can use Linq’s GroupBy in a modified version which groups only if the two items are adjacent, then it’s easy as:

var result = classes
    .GroupAdjacent(c => c.Value)
    .Select(g => new { 
        SequenceNumFrom = g.Min(c => c.SequenceNumber),
        SequenceNumTo = g.Max(c => c.SequenceNumber),  
        Value = g.Key
    });

foreach (var x in result)
    Console.WriteLine("SequenceNumFrom:{0} SequenceNumTo:{1} Value:{2}", x.SequenceNumFrom, x.SequenceNumTo, x.Value);

DEMO

Result:

SequenceNumFrom:1  SequenceNumTo:2  Value:9
SequenceNumFrom:3  SequenceNumTo:5  Value:15
SequenceNumFrom:6  SequenceNumTo:6  Value:30
SequenceNumFrom:7  SequenceNumTo:7  Value:9

This is the extension method to to group adjacent items:

public static IEnumerable<IGrouping<TKey, TSource>> GroupAdjacent<TSource, TKey>(
        this IEnumerable<TSource> source,
        Func<TSource, TKey> keySelector)
    {
        TKey last = default(TKey);
        bool haveLast = false;
        List<TSource> list = new List<TSource>();
        foreach (TSource s in source)
        {
            TKey k = keySelector(s);
            if (haveLast)
            {
                if (!k.Equals(last))
                {
                    yield return new GroupOfAdjacent<TSource, TKey>(list, last);
                    list = new List<TSource>();
                    list.Add(s);
                    last = k;
                }
                else
                {
                    list.Add(s);
                    last = k;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                list.Add(s);
                last = k;
                haveLast = true;
            }
        }
        if (haveLast)
            yield return new GroupOfAdjacent<TSource, TKey>(list, last);
    }
}

and the class used:

public class GroupOfAdjacent<TSource, TKey> : IEnumerable<TSource>, IGrouping<TKey, TSource>
{
    public TKey Key { get; set; }
    private List<TSource> GroupList { get; set; }
    System.Collections.IEnumerator System.Collections.IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return ((System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<TSource>)this).GetEnumerator();
    }
    System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerator<TSource> System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<TSource>.GetEnumerator()
    {
        foreach (var s in GroupList)
            yield return s;
    }
    public GroupOfAdjacent(List<TSource> source, TKey key)
    {
        GroupList = source;
        Key = key;
    }
}