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<int> 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<T> is left as an exercise. :-)

Answer 2

var val = yyy.First().Value;
return yyy.All(x=>x.Value == val) ? val : otherValue; 

Cleanest way I can think of. You can make it a one-liner by inlining val, but First() would be evaluated n times, doubling execution time.

To incorporate the "empty set" behavior specified in the comments, you simply add one more line before the two above:

if(yyy == null || !yyy.Any()) return otherValue;

Answer 3

A slight variation on the above simplified approach.

var result = yyy.Distinct().Count() == yyy.Count();

Answer 4

This may be late, but an extension that works for value and reference types alike based on Eric's answer:

public static partial class Extensions
{
    public static Nullable<T> Unanimous<T>(this IEnumerable<Nullable<T>> sequence, Nullable<T> other, IEqualityComparer comparer = null)  where T : struct, IComparable
    {
        object first = null;
        foreach(var item in sequence)
        {
            if (first == null)
                first = item;
            else if (comparer != null && !comparer.Equals(first, item))
                return other;
            else if (!first.Equals(item))
                return other;
        }
        return (Nullable<T>)first ?? other;
    }

    public static T Unanimous<T>(this IEnumerable<T> sequence, T other, IEqualityComparer comparer = null)  where T : class, IComparable
    {
        object first = null;
        foreach(var item in sequence)
        {
            if (first == null)
                first = item;
            else if (comparer != null && !comparer.Equals(first, item))
                return other;
            else if (!first.Equals(item))
                return other;
        }
        return (T)first ?? other;
    }
}

Answer 5

public int GetResult(List<int> list){
int first = list.First();
return list.All(x => x == first) ? first : SOME_OTHER_VALUE;
}

Answer 6

If a array is of type multidimension like below then we have to write below linq to check the data.

example: here elements are 0 and i am checking all values are 0 or not.
ip1=
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0

    var value=ip1[0][0];  //got the first index value
    var equalValue = ip1.Any(x=>x.Any(xy=>xy.Equals()));  //check with all elements value 
    if(equalValue)//returns true or false  
    {  
    return "Same Numbers";  
    }else{  
    return "Different Numbers";   
    }