Distinct OrderBy in LINQ

One of my colleagues was curious to know how to implement a Distinct-OrderBy on a custom collection in LINQ. Here’s an example. This example uses the Distinct and OrderBy on the CustomerName property of the Customer class.

C#

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var cust = (from c in Customer.GetCustomers()
          select c.CustName)
          .Distinct()
         .OrderBy(x => x);
        foreach(var cst in cust)
            Console.WriteLine(cst);
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
}

class Customer
{
    public int OrderId { get; set; }
    public string CustName { get; set; }

    public static List<Customer> GetCustomers()
    {
        List<Customer> cust = new List<Customer>();
        cust.Add(new Customer() { OrderId = 1, CustName = "Zack" });
        cust.Add(new Customer() { OrderId = 2, CustName = "Harry" });
        cust.Add(new Customer() { OrderId = 3, CustName = "Jill" });
        cust.Add(new Customer() { OrderId = 4, CustName = "Zack" });
        cust.Add(new Customer() { OrderId = 5, CustName = "Martin" });
        cust.Add(new Customer() { OrderId = 6, CustName = "Jill" });
        return cust;
    }
}

VB.NET

Friend Class Program
    Shared Sub Main(ByVal args() As String)
        Dim cust = (
            From c In Customer.GetCustomers()
            Select c.CustName).Distinct().OrderBy(Function(x) x)
        For Each cst In cust
            Console.WriteLine(cst)
        Next cst
        Console.ReadLine()
    End Sub
End Class

Friend Class Customer
    Public Property OrderId() As Integer
    Public Property CustName() As String

    Public Shared Function GetCustomers() As List(Of Customer)
        Dim cust As New List(Of Customer)()
        cust.Add(New Customer() With {.OrderId = 1, .CustName = "Zack"})
        cust.Add(New Customer() With {.OrderId = 2, .CustName = "Harry"})
        cust.Add(New Customer() With {.OrderId = 3, .CustName = "Jill"})
        cust.Add(New Customer() With {.OrderId = 4, .CustName = "Zack"})
        cust.Add(New Customer() With {.OrderId = 5, .CustName = "Martin"})
        cust.Add(New Customer() With {.OrderId = 6, .CustName = "Jill"})
        Return cust
    End Function
End Class

You can read more about Distinct and OrderBy

OUTPUT

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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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