Compare two Lists for differences

Question

I would like some feedback on how we can best write a generic function that will enable two Lists to be compared. The Lists contain class objects and we would like to iterat

Answer 1

I hope that I am understing your question correctly, but you can do this very quickly with Linq. I'm assuming that universally you will always have an Id property. Just create an interface to ensure this.

If how you identify an object to be the same changes from class to class, I would recommend passing in a delegate that returns true if the two objects have the same persistent id.

Here is how to do it in Linq:

List listA = new List();
        List listB = new List();

        listA.Add(new Employee() { Id = 1, Name = "Bill" });
        listA.Add(new Employee() { Id = 2, Name = "Ted" });

        listB.Add(new Employee() { Id = 1, Name = "Bill Sr." });
        listB.Add(new Employee() { Id = 3, Name = "Jim" });

        var identicalQuery = from employeeA in listA
                             join employeeB in listB on employeeA.Id equals employeeB.Id
                             select new { EmployeeA = employeeA, EmployeeB = employeeB };

        foreach (var queryResult in identicalQuery)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(queryResult.EmployeeA.Name);
            Console.WriteLine(queryResult.EmployeeB.Name);
        }