Question

Possible Duplicate:
Which method performs better: .Any() vs .Count() > 0?

I just wonder why should I use Any() instead of Count()?, if we took the msdn example :

class Pet
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
}
class Person
{
    public string LastName { get; set; }
    public Pet[] Pets { get; set; }
}

public static void AnyEx2()
{
    List<Person> people = new List<Person>
        { new Person { LastName = "Haas",
                       Pets = new Pet[] { new Pet { Name="Barley", Age=10 },
                                          new Pet { Name="Boots", Age=14 },
                                          new Pet { Name="Whiskers", Age=6 }}},
          new Person { LastName = "Fakhouri",
                       Pets = new Pet[] { new Pet { Name = "Snowball", Age = 1}}},
          new Person { LastName = "Antebi",
                       Pets = new Pet[] { }},
          new Person { LastName = "Philips",
                       Pets = new Pet[] { new Pet { Name = "Sweetie", Age = 2},
                                          new Pet { Name = "Rover", Age = 13}} }
        };

    // Determine which people have a non-empty Pet array.
    IEnumerable<string> names = from person in people
                            where person.Pets.AsQueryable().Any()
                            select person.LastName;

    foreach (string name in names)
        Console.WriteLine(name);

    /* This code produces the following output:

       Haas
       Fakhouri
       Philips
    */
}

What if I used :

  IEnumerable<string> names = from person in people
                            where person.Pets.Count() > 0
                            select person.LastName;

It will give same result ! , (I don’t think it created for shortness or something) , is there any feature for Any() ??

Answer 1

Any just checks if the sequence contains at least one element, while Count needs to iterate over all elements. That’s the difference. A classic scenario where Any is preferred over Count is this:

if (sec.Count() > 0)

vs

if (sec.Any())