Question

Say I have 3 char variables, a, b and c.
Each one can be '0', which is a special case and means it matches every char.

So if a is '0', I only need to check if b == c.
I want to check if a == b == c, but found the implementation in C# goes chaotic and lengthy.

Is there any creative or pretty solution you can offer?

update

for performance driven, take Erik A. Brandstadmoen’s approach.
for simplicity, use M4N’s apprach, also i did some modification: !(query.Any() && query.Distinct().Skip(1).Any())

Answer 1

Something like this should work for any number of char values:

public class Comparer
{
    public static bool AreEqualOrZero(params char[] values)
    {
        var firstNonZero = values.FirstOrDefault(x => x != '0');
        return values.All(x => x == firstNonZero || x == '0');
    }
}

Passes the following unit tests:

[TestClass()]
public class ComparerTest
{

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Matches_With_Wildcard()
    {
        char[] values = {'0', '1', '1', '1'};
        Assert.IsTrue(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Matches_With_No_Wildcard()
    {
        char[] values = {'1', '1', '1', '1'};
        Assert.IsTrue(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Matches_With_Only_Wildcards()
    {
        char[] values = {'0', '0', '0'};
        Assert.IsTrue(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Matches_With_Zero_Length()
    {
        char[] values = {};
        Assert.IsTrue(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Matches_With_One_Element()
    {
        char[] values = {'9'};
        Assert.IsTrue(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Matches_With_One_Wildcard_And_Nothing_Else()
    {
        char[] values = {'0'};
        Assert.IsTrue(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Does_Not_Match_On_NonEqual_Sequence_No_Wildcard()
    {
        char[] values = {'1', '2', '1', '1'};
        Assert.IsFalse(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }

    [TestMethod()]
    public void Does_Not_Match_On_NonEqual_Sequence_With_Wildcard()
    {
        char[] values = {'1', '2', '1', '0'};
        Assert.IsFalse(Comparer.AreEqualOrZero(values));
    }
}