I'm trying to figure out how to traverse a generic list of items that I want to remove from another list of items.
So let's say I have this as a hypothetical example
List<car> list1 = GetTheList();
List<car> list2 = GetSomeOtherList();
I want to traverse list1 with a foreach and remove each item in List1 which is also contained in List2.
I'm not quite sure how to go about that as foreach is not index based.
list1
that exist in list2
, or do you want to remove the items from list2
that exist in list1
? At the time of this comment, each answer provided will perform the latter.
You can use Except:
List<car> list1 = GetTheList();
List<car> list2 = GetSomeOtherList();
List<car> result = list2.Except(list1).ToList();
You probably don't even need those temporary variables:
List<car> result = GetSomeOtherList().Except(GetTheList()).ToList();
Note that Except
does not modify either list - it creates a new list with the result.
You don't need an index, as the List<T>
class allows you to remove items by value rather than index by using the Remove
function.
foreach(car item in list1) list2.Remove(item);
list2.Remove(item);
statement.
list1.ForEach(c => list2.Remove(c));
In my case I had two different lists, with a common identifier, kind of like a foreign key. The second solution cited by "nzrytmn":
var result = list1.Where(p => !list2.Any(x => x.ID == p.ID && x.property1 == p.property1)).ToList();
Was the one that best fit in my situation. I needed to load a DropDownList without the records that had already been registered.
Thank you !!!
This is my code:
t1 = new T1();
t2 = new T2();
List<T1> list1 = t1.getList();
List<T2> list2 = t2.getList();
ddlT3.DataSource= list2.Where(s => !list1.Any(p => p.Id == s.ID)).ToList();
ddlT3.DataTextField = "AnyThing";
ddlT3.DataValueField = "IdAnyThing";
ddlT3.DataBind();
I would recommend using the LINQ extension methods. You can easily do it with one line of code like so:
list2 = list2.Except(list1).ToList();
This is assuming of course the objects in list1 that you are removing from list2 are the same instance.
list1.RemoveAll(l => list2.Contains(l));
O(N)
, this will lead to O(N^2)
which might be an issue with large lists.
You could use LINQ, but I would go with RemoveAll
method. I think that is the one that better expresses your intent.
var integers = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
var remove = new List<int> { 1, 3, 5 };
integers.RemoveAll(i => remove.Contains(i));
Solution 1 : You can do like this :
List<car> result = GetSomeOtherList().Except(GetTheList()).ToList();
But in some cases may this solution not work. if it is not work you can use my second solution .
Solution 2 :
List<car> list1 = GetTheList();
List<car> list2 = GetSomeOtherList();
we pretend that list1 is your main list and list2 is your secondry list and you want to get items of list1 without items of list2.
var result = list1.Where(p => !list2.Any(x => x.ID == p.ID && x.property1 == p.property1)).ToList();
As Except
does not modify the list, you can use ForEach on List<T>
:
list2.ForEach(item => list1.Remove(item));
It may not be the most efficient way, but it is simple, therefore readable, and it updates the original list (which is my requirement).
I think it would be quick to convert list A to a dictionary and then foreach the second list and call DictA.Remove(item)
otherwise I think most solutions will cause many iterations through list A either directly or under the covers.
If the lists are small, it probably won't matter.
Here ya go..
List<string> list = new List<string>() { "1", "2", "3" };
List<string> remove = new List<string>() { "2" };
list.ForEach(s =>
{
if (remove.Contains(s))
{
list.Remove(s);
}
});
Success story sharing
IEnumerable<car>
, not aList<car>
. You need to callToList()
to get a list back. In addition, I believe it should beGetSomeOtherList().Except(GetTheList()).ToList()
using System.Linq;
if you didn't have it before.Except
as this actually performs a set operation, which distincts the resulting list. I was not expecting this behaviour as I am using aList
, not aHashSet
. Related.