LINQ Select Distinct with Anonymous Types

Question

So I have a collection of objects. The exact type isn't important. From it I want to extract all the unique pairs of a pair of particular properties, thusly:

myObjectCollection.Select(item=>new
                                {
                                     Alpha = item.propOne,
                                     Bravo = item.propTwo
                                }
                 ).Distinct();

So my question is: Will Distinct in this case use the default object equals (which will be useless to me, since each object is new) or can it be told to do a different equals (in this case, equal values of Alpha and Bravo => equal instances)? Is there any way to achieve that result, if this doesn't do it?

Answer 1

Test it out and see if it works as you want it to!

Answer 2

Is this LINQ-to-Objects or LINQ-to-SQL? If just objects, you're probably out of luck. However, if L2S, then it may work, as the DISTINCT would be passed onto the SQL statement.

Answer 3

Have a read through K. Scott Allen's excellent post here:

And Equality for All ... Anonymous Types

The short answer (and I quote):

Turns out the C# compiler overrides Equals and GetHashCode for anonymous types. The implementation of the two overridden methods uses all the public properties on the type to compute an object's hash code and test for equality. If two objects of the same anonymous type have all the same values for their properties – the objects are equal.

So it's totally safe to use the Distinct() method on a query that returns anonymous types.

Answer 4

If Alpha and Bravo both inherit from a common class, you will be able to dictate the equality check in the parent class by implementing IEquatable<T>.

For example:

public class CommonClass : IEquatable<CommonClass>
{
    // needed for Distinct()
    public override int GetHashCode() 
    {
     return base.GetHashCode();
    }

    public bool Equals(CommonClass other)
    {
     if (other == null) return false;
     return [equality test];
    }
}

Answer 5

I ran a little test and found that if the properties are value types, it seems to work ok. If they are not value types, then the type needs provide it's own Equals and GetHashCode implementations for it to work. Strings, I would think, would work.

Answer 6

You can create your own Distinct Extension method which takes lambda expression. Here's an example

Create a class which derives from IEqualityComparer interface

public class DelegateComparer : IEqualityComparer { private Func _equals; private Func _hashCode; public DelegateComparer(Func equals, Func hashCode) { _equals= equals; _hashCode = hashCode; } public bool Equals(T x, T y) { return _equals(x, y); }

    public int GetHashCode(T obj)
    {
        if(_hashCode!=null)
            return _hashCode(obj);
        return obj.GetHashCode();
    }       
}

Then create your Distinct Extension method

public static class Extensions { public static IEnumerable Distinct(this IEnumerable items, Func equals, Func hashCode) { return items.Distinct(new DelegateComparer(equals, hashCode));
} public static IEnumerable Distinct(this IEnumerable items, Func equals) { return items.Distinct(new DelegateComparer(equals,null)); } }

and you can use this method find distinct items

var uniqueItems=students.Select(s=> new {FirstName=s.FirstName, LastName=s.LastName}) .Distinct((a,b) => a.FirstName==b.FirstName, c => c.FirstName.GetHashCode()).ToList();

Answer 7

public class DelegateComparer<T> : IEqualityComparer<T>
{
    private Func<T, T, bool> _equals;
    private Func<T, int> _hashCode;
    public DelegateComparer(Func<T, T, bool> equals, Func<T, int> hashCode)
    {
        _equals= equals;
        _hashCode = hashCode;
    }
    public bool Equals(T x, T y)
    {
        return _equals(x, y);
    }

    public int GetHashCode(T obj)
    {
        if(_hashCode!=null)
            return _hashCode(obj);
        return obj.GetHashCode();
    }       
}

public static class Extensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<T> Distinct<T>(this IEnumerable<T> items, 
        Func<T, T, bool> equals, Func<T,int> hashCode)
    {
        return items.Distinct(new DelegateComparer<T>(equals, hashCode));    
    }
    public static IEnumerable<T> Distinct<T>(this IEnumerable<T> items,
        Func<T, T, bool> equals)
    {
        return items.Distinct(new DelegateComparer<T>(equals,null));
    }
}

var uniqueItems=students.Select(s=> new {FirstName=s.FirstName, LastName=s.LastName})
            .Distinct((a,b) => a.FirstName==b.FirstName, c => c.FirstName.GetHashCode()).ToList();

Sorry for the messed up formatting earlier

Answer 8

Interesting that it works in C# but not in VB

Returns the 26 letters:

var MyBet = "aAbBcCdDeEfFgGhHiIjJkKlLmMnNoOpPqQrRsStTuUvVwWxXyYzZ";
MyBet.ToCharArray()
.Select(x => new {lower = x.ToString().ToLower(), upper = x.ToString().ToUpper()})
.Distinct()
.Dump();

Returns 52...

Dim MyBet = "aAbBcCdDeEfFgGhHiIjJkKlLmMnNoOpPqQrRsStTuUvVwWxXyYzZ"
MyBet.ToCharArray() _
.Select(Function(x) New With {.lower = x.ToString.ToLower(), .upper = x.ToString.ToUpper()}) _
.Distinct() _
.Dump()