Question

Short question:

Is there a simple way in LINQ to objects to get a distinct list of objects from a list based on a key property on the objects.

Long question:

I am trying to do a Distinct() operation on a list of objects that have a key as one of their properties.

class GalleryImage {    public int Key { get;set; }    public string Caption { get;set; }    public string Filename { get; set; }    public string[] Tags {g et; set; } } 

I have a list of Gallery objects that contain GalleryImage[].

Because of the way the webservice works [sic] I have duplicates of the GalleryImage object. i thought it would be a simple matter to use Distinct() to get a distinct list.

This is the LINQ query I want to use :

var allImages = Galleries.SelectMany(x => x.Images); var distinctImages = allImages.Distinct<GalleryImage>(new                       EqualityComparer<GalleryImage>((a, b) => a.id == b.id)); 

The problem is that EqualityComparer is an abstract class.

I dont want to :

• implement IEquatable on GalleryImage because it is generated
• have to write a separate class to implement IEqualityComparer as shown here

Is there a concrete implementation of EqualityComparer somewhere that I’m missing?

I would have thought there would be an easy way to get ‘distinct’ objects from a set based on a key.

Answer 1

(There are two solutions here – see the end for the second one):

My MiscUtil library has a ProjectionEqualityComparer class (and two supporting classes to make use of type inference).

Here’s an example of using it:

EqualityComparer<GalleryImage> comparer =      ProjectionEqualityComparer<GalleryImage>.Create(x => x.id); 

Here’s the code (comments removed)

// Helper class for construction public static class ProjectionEqualityComparer {     public static ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource, TKey>         Create<TSource, TKey>(Func<TSource, TKey> projection)     {         return new ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource, TKey>(projection);     }      public static ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource, TKey>         Create<TSource, TKey> (TSource ignored,                                Func<TSource, TKey> projection)     {         return new ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource, TKey>(projection);     } }  public static class ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource> {     public static ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource, TKey>         Create<TKey>(Func<TSource, TKey> projection)     {         return new ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource, TKey>(projection);     } }  public class ProjectionEqualityComparer<TSource, TKey>     : IEqualityComparer<TSource> {     readonly Func<TSource, TKey> projection;     readonly IEqualityComparer<TKey> comparer;      public ProjectionEqualityComparer(Func<TSource, TKey> projection)         : this(projection, null)     {     }      public ProjectionEqualityComparer(         Func<TSource, TKey> projection,         IEqualityComparer<TKey> comparer)     {         projection.ThrowIfNull('projection');         this.comparer = comparer ?? EqualityComparer<TKey>.Default;         this.projection = projection;     }      public bool Equals(TSource x, TSource y)     {         if (x == null && y == null)         {             return true;         }         if (x == null || y == null)         {             return false;         }         return comparer.Equals(projection(x), projection(y));     }      public int GetHashCode(TSource obj)     {         if (obj == null)         {             throw new ArgumentNullException('obj');         }         return comparer.GetHashCode(projection(obj));     } } 

Second solution

To do this just for Distinct, you can use the DistinctBy extension in MoreLINQ:

    public static IEnumerable<TSource> DistinctBy<TSource, TKey>         (this IEnumerable<TSource> source,          Func<TSource, TKey> keySelector)     {         return source.DistinctBy(keySelector, null);     }      public static IEnumerable<TSource> DistinctBy<TSource, TKey>         (this IEnumerable<TSource> source,          Func<TSource, TKey> keySelector,          IEqualityComparer<TKey> comparer)     {         source.ThrowIfNull('source');         keySelector.ThrowIfNull('keySelector');         return DistinctByImpl(source, keySelector, comparer);     }      private static IEnumerable<TSource> DistinctByImpl<TSource, TKey>         (IEnumerable<TSource> source,          Func<TSource, TKey> keySelector,          IEqualityComparer<TKey> comparer)     {         HashSet<TKey> knownKeys = new HashSet<TKey>(comparer);         foreach (TSource element in source)         {             if (knownKeys.Add(keySelector(element)))             {                 yield return element;             }         }     } 

In both cases, ThrowIfNull looks like this:

public static void ThrowIfNull<T>(this T data, string name) where T : class {     if (data == null)     {         throw new ArgumentNullException(name);     } }