How to check if all list items have the same value and return it, or return an “otherValue” if they don’t?

Question

If all the items in a list have the same value, then I need to use that value, otherwise I need to use an “otherValue”. I can’t think of a simple and clear way of doing this

Answer 1

Though you certainly can build such a device out of existing sequence operators, I would in this case be inclined to write this one up as a custom sequence operator. Something like:

// Returns "other" if the list is empty.
// Returns "other" if the list is non-empty and there are two different elements.
// Returns the element of the list if it is non-empty and all elements are the same.
public static int Unanimous(this IEnumerable sequence, int other)
{
    int? first = null;
    foreach(var item in sequence)
    {
        if (first == null)
            first = item;
        else if (first.Value != item)
            return other;
    }
    return first ?? other;
}

That's pretty clear, short, covers all the cases, and does not unnecessarily create extra iterations of the sequence.

Making this into a generic method that works on IEnumerable is left as an exercise. :-)