Return the First Element of a Sequence in LINQ

If you have a List<string> and want to quickly retrieve the first item of the sequence, use FirstOrDefault()

Enumerable.FirstOrDefault() returns the first element of a sequence, or a default value if the sequence contains no elements. For eg: Running the following query returns 'Jack'

C#

void Main()

{

    List<string> list = new List<string>() { "Jack", "And", "Jill", "Went", "Up", "The", "Hill" };

    var first = list.FirstOrDefault();

    Console.WriteLine(first);

}

VB.NET

Private Sub Main()

    Dim list As New List(Of String)(New String() {"Jack", "And", "Jill", "Went", "Up", "The", "Hill"})

    Dim first = list.FirstOrDefault()

    Console.WriteLine(first)

End Sub

Similarly if FirstOrDefault is used on an empty list of integers, it returns 0

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About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, ASP.NET Architecture MVP works as an Architect Consultant and provides consultancy on how to design and develop Web applications.

Suprotim is also the founder and primary contributor to DevCurry, DotNetCurry and SQLServerCurry. He has also written an EBook 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls.

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