Using LINQ methods to compare objects of custom type

I have a master list;

v2-2021 – ‘cover page$’
v2-2021 – ‘i# milestones$’
v2-2021 – ‘ii# tasks$’
v2-2021 – ‘iii# spendplan$’

I have a sub list;

v2-2021 – ‘cover page$’
v2-2021 – ‘i# milestones$’
v2-2021 – ‘ii# tasks$’

I want to make sure that all elements in my sub list exists in master list.

To solve this i have created this class;

internal class ExcelVersions
{
    public string VersionNumber { get; set; }
    public string TableName { get; set; }

}

I have created following objects based on this class;

List<ExcelVersions> cfirstList = new List<ExcelVersions>
{
                new ExcelVersions { VersionNumber = "v2-2021", TableName = "'cover page$'" },
                new ExcelVersions { VersionNumber = "v2-2021", TableName = "'i# milestones$'" },
                new ExcelVersions { VersionNumber = "v2-2021", TableName = "'ii# tasks$'" },
                new ExcelVersions { VersionNumber = "v2-2021", TableName = "'iii# spendplan$'" }
            };
            List<ExcelVersions> csecondList = new List<ExcelVersions>
            {
                new ExcelVersions { VersionNumber = "v2-2021", TableName = "'cover page$'" },
                new ExcelVersions { VersionNumber = "v2-2021", TableName = "'i# milestones$'" },
                new ExcelVersions { VersionNumber = "v2-2021", TableName = "'ii# tasks$'" }
            };
            //var cexceptList = csecondList.Except(cfirstList, new ExcelVersionsComparer());
            var cexceptList = csecondList.Except(cfirstList);
            Console.WriteLine($"\ncSecondList-->cFirstList: Value in second list that are not in first List");
            foreach (var val in cexceptList)
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"{val.TableName}");
            }
            IsASubset = csecondList.All(i => cfirstList.Contains(i));
            Console.WriteLine($"\ncSecondList-->cFirstList: all members of subset (cSecondList) exists in list1 (cFirstList): {IsASubset}");
}

This is the result i get;

To my surprise, none of LINQ comparison method worked on custom class. What’s wrong? The answer is in the LINQ implementation. To be correctly processed by the Except method, a type must implement the IEquatable<T> interface and provide its own Equals and GetHashCode methods.

Re-writing out custom type;

internal class ExcelVersions : IEquatable<ExcelVersions>
{
        public string VersionNumber { get; set; }
        public string TableName { get; set; }

        public bool Equals(ExcelVersions other)
        {
            //check whether the compare object is null
            if (Object.ReferenceEquals(other, null)) return false;
            //check whether the compared object references the same data
            if (Object.ReferenceEquals(this, other)) return true;
            //check whether the object's properteis are equal
            return VersionNumber.Equals(other.VersionNumber) && TableName.Equals(other.TableName);
        }

        //if Equals returns true for a pair of objects
        //GetHashCode must return the same value for these objects
        public override int GetHashCode()
        {
            //Get the hash code for the version number
            int hashVersionNumber = VersionNumber == null ? 0 : VersionNumber.GetHashCode();
            //get the hash code for the table name
            int hashTableName = TableName.GetHashCode();

            //calculate the hash code for the object
            return hashVersionNumber ^ hashTableName;
    }
}

This time the results are;

OK. Custom class is working but what if we cannot modify the type? What if it was provided by a library and we have no way of implementing the IEquiatable<T> interface. The answer is to create our own equality comparer and pass it as a parameter to the Except method.

The equality comparer must implement the IEqualityComparer<T> interface and provide GetHashCode and Equals method like this;

internal class ExcelVersionsComparer : IEqualityComparer<ExcelVersions>
{
        public bool Equals(ExcelVersions x, ExcelVersions y)
        {
            if (Object.ReferenceEquals(x, y))
                return true;

            if (Object.ReferenceEquals(x, null) || Object.ReferenceEquals(y, null))
                return false;
            return x.Equals(y);
        }

        public int GetHashCode(ExcelVersions excelVersion)
        {
            if (Object.ReferenceEquals(excelVersion, null)) return 0;

            int hashVersion = excelVersion.VersionNumber == null ? 0 : excelVersion.GetHashCode();
            int hashTable = excelVersion.TableName.GetHashCode();

            return hashVersion ^ hashTable;
        }
}

This is how we are going to pass the comparer to the Except method;

var cexceptList = csecondList.Except(cfirstList, new ExcelVersionsComparer());

These rules don’t just apply to Except method. For example, the same is true for the Distinct, Contains, Interset and Union methods. Generally, if you see that a LINQ method has an overload that accepts the IEqualityComparer<T> parameter, means that to use it with your own data type, you need to either implement IEquatable<T> in your class or create your own equality comparer.

If you want to use built-in class instead of creating custom class, consider this class;