LINQ Distinct operator, ignore case?

Question

Given the following simple example:

    List<string> list = new List<string>() { "One", "Two", "Three", "three", "Four", "Five" };

    CaseInsensitiveComparer ignoreCaseComparer = new CaseInsensitiveComparer();

    var distinctList = list.Distinct(ignoreCaseComparer as IEqualityComparer<string>).ToList();

It appears the CaseInsensitiveComparer is not actually being used to do a case-insensitive comparison.

In other words distinctList contains the same number of items as list. Instead I would expect, for example, "Three" and "three" be considered equal.

Am I missing something or is this an issue with the Distinct operator?

Answer 1

I notice in "LINQ Pocket Reference" (O'Reilly) it says:

1.12.4. Distinct Distinct returns the input sequence stripped of duplicates. Only the default equality comparer can be used for equality comparison.

I'm wondering why then Distinct() provides an overload accepting an IEqualityComparer?

Answer 2

StringComparer does what you need:

List<string> list = new List<string>() {
    "One", "Two", "Three", "three", "Four", "Five" };

var distinctList = list.Distinct(
    StringComparer.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase).ToList();

(or invariant / ordinal / etc depending on the data you are comparing)

Answer 3

[See Marc Gravells answer if you want the most concise approach]

After some investigation and good feedback from Bradley Grainger I've implemented the following IEqualityComparer. It suports a case insensitive Distinct() statement (just pass an instance of this to the Distinct operator) :

class IgnoreCaseComparer : IEqualityComparer<string>
{
    public CaseInsensitiveComparer myComparer;

    public IgnoreCaseComparer()
    {
        myComparer = CaseInsensitiveComparer.DefaultInvariant;
    }

    public IgnoreCaseComparer(CultureInfo

myCulture) { myComparer = new CaseInsensitiveComparer(myCulture); }

    #region IEqualityComparer<string> Members

    public bool Equals(string x, string y)
    {
        if (myComparer.Compare(x, y) == 0)
        {
            return true;
        }
        else
        {
            return false;
        }
    }

    public int GetHashCode(string obj)
    {
        return obj.ToLower().GetHashCode();
    }

    #endregion
}

Answer 4

Here is a far simpler version.

List list = new List() { "One", "Two", "Three", "three", "Four", "Five" };

var z = (from x in list select new { item = x.ToLower()}).Distinct();

z.Dump();