LINQ: When to use SingleOrDefault vs. FirstOrDefault() with filtering criteria

Question

Consider the IEnumerable extension methods SingleOrDefault() and FirstOrDefault()

MSDN documents that SingleOrDefault:

Answer 1

If your result set returns 0 records:

• SingleOrDefault returns the default value for the type (e.g. default for int is 0)
• FirstOrDefault returns the default value for the type

If you result set returns 1 record:

• SingleOrDefault returns that record
• FirstOrDefault returns that record

If your result set returns many records:

• SingleOrDefault throws an exception
• FirstOrDefault returns the first record

Conclusion:

If you want an exception to be thrown if the result set contains many records, use SingleOrDefault.

If you always want 1 record no matter what the result set contains, use FirstOrDefault