Question

So I have a List<SearchResult> Results that will return multiple results for a single Category property, when the Item property is different.

So for example the results could be:

SearchResult[0].Category = "Food"
SearchResult[0].Item = "Ham"
SearchResult[1].Category = "Food"
SearchResult[1].Item = "Cheese"
SearchResult[2].Category = "Food"
SearchResult[2].Item = "Crackers"
SearchResult[3].Category = "Drink"
SearchResult[3].Category = "Juice"

etc.

Now I want to display them like this:

Items in the Food category include: Ham, Cheese, and Crackers

Items in the Drink category include: Drink

etc.

But this is what I have now:

@foreach (SearchResult result in Results)
{
    <p>Items in the @result.Category category include: @result.Item </p>
}

Which of course is displaying the data like this:

Items in the Food category include: Ham

Items in the Food category include: Cheese

Items in the Food category include: Crackers

Items in the Drink category include: Juice

Now I feel like there must be some LINQ magic I can work on that List and do this properly, rather than manually coding a loop that separates them off into individual lists.

What’s the trick?

Answer 1

The trick is using the group clause / the GroupBy Method.

var query = from result in Results
            group result by result.Category;

and

@foreach (var g in query)
{
    <p>Items in the @g.Key category include:</p>
    <ul>
    @foreach (var x in g)
    {
        <li>@x.Item</li>
    }
    </ul>
}