Remove duplicate inner lists from a list of list<object> in c#

Question

I apologize for the ambiguous title. I couldn\'t keep it clear and concise at the same time. So feel free to change it.

I have a big List which contains several othe

Answer 1

I would implement a custom IEqualityComparer> which you can use for Distinct:

public class ColumnListComparer : IEqualityComparer>
{
    public bool Equals(IEnumerable x, IEnumerable y)
    {
        if (x == null || y == null) return false;
        if (object.ReferenceEquals(x, y)) return true;
        return x.SequenceEqual(y);
    }

    public int GetHashCode(IEnumerable obj)
    {
        unchecked
        {
            int hash = 17;
            foreach(Column col in obj)
            {
                hash = hash * 23 + (col == null ? 0 : col.GetHashCode());
            }
            return hash;
        }
    }
}

Now this works:

var result = listOfAllColumns.Distinct(new ColumnListComparer());

You also need to override Equals + GetHashCode in your class Column:

public class Column
{
    public string SectionName;
    public string StirrupType;
    public int StirrupSize;
    public double StirrupSpacing;

    public override bool Equals(object obj)
    {
        Column col2 = obj as Column;
        if(col2 == null) return false;
        return SectionName    == col2.SectionName
            && StirrupType    == col2.StirrupType 
            && StirrupSize    == col2.StirrupSize
            && StirrupSpacing == col2.StirrupSpacing;
    }

    public override int GetHashCode()
    {
        unchecked
        {
            int hash = 17;
            hash = hash * 23 + (SectionName ?? "").GetHashCode();
            hash = hash * 23 + (StirrupType ?? "").GetHashCode();
            hash = hash * 23 + StirrupSize.GetHashCode();
            hash = hash * 23 + StirrupSpacing.GetHashCode();
            return hash;
        }
    }
}