Linq Distinct on a particular Property

Question

I am playing with Linq to learn about it but I can't figure out how to use Distinct when I do not have a simple list (a simple list of integers is pretty easy to do, this is not the question). What if want to use Distinct on a list of an Object on ONE or MORE Properties of the object? Example: If an object is Person, with Property Id. How can I get all Person and use Distinct on them with the property Id of the object?

Person1: Id=1, Name="Test1"
Person2: Id=1, Name="Test1"
Person3: Id=2, Name="Test2"

How can I get just Person1 and Person3? Is that possible? If it's not possible with Linq, what would be the best way to have a list of Person depending on some of its Properties in .Net 3.5?

Answer

What you need is a "distinct-by" effectively. I don't believe it's part of LINQ as it stands, although it's fairly easy to write:

public static IEnumerable DistinctBy
    (this IEnumerable source, Func keySelector)
{
    HashSet seenKeys = new HashSet();
    foreach (TSource element in source)
    {
        if (seenKeys.Add(keySelector(element)))
        {
            yield return element;
        }
    }
}

So to find the distinct values using just the Id property, you could use:

var query = people.DistinctBy(p => p.Id);

And to use multiple properties, you can use anonymous types, which implement equality appropriately:

var query = people.DistinctBy(p => new { p.Id, p.Name });

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