Difference between two lists

You could do something like this:

var result = customlist.Where(p => !otherlist.Any(l => p.someproperty == l.someproperty));

Using Except is exactly the right way to go. If your type overrides Equals and GetHashCode, or you're only interested in reference type equality (i.e. two references are only "equal" if they refer to the exact same object), you can just use:

var list3 = list1.Except(list2).ToList();

If you need to express a custom idea of equality, e.g. by ID, you'll need to implement IEqualityComparer<T>. For example:

public class IdComparer : IEqualityComparer<CustomObject>
{
    public int GetHashCode(CustomObject co)
    {
        if (co == null)
        {
            return 0;
        }
        return co.Id.GetHashCode();
    }

    public bool Equals(CustomObject x1, CustomObject x2)
    {
        if (object.ReferenceEquals(x1, x2))
        {
            return true;
        }
        if (object.ReferenceEquals(x1, null) ||
            object.ReferenceEquals(x2, null))
        {
            return false;
        }
        return x1.Id == x2.Id;
    }
}

Then use:

var list3 = list1.Except(list2, new IdComparer()).ToList();

Note that this will remove any duplicate elements. If you need duplicates to be preserved, it would probably be easiest to create a set from list2 and use something like:

var list3 = list1.Where(x => !set2.Contains(x)).ToList();

I think important to emphasize - using Except method will return you items who are in the first without the items in the second one only. It does not return those elements in second that do not appear in first.

var list1 = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
var list2 = new List<int> { 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };

var list3 = list1.Except(list2).ToList(); //list3 contains only 1, 2

But if you want get real difference between two lists:

Items who are in the first without the items in the second one and items who are in the second without the items in the first one.

You need using Except twice:

var list1 = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
var list2 = new List<int> { 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };

var list3 = list1.Except(list2); //list3 contains only 1, 2
var list4 = list2.Except(list1); //list4 contains only 6, 7
var resultList = list3.Concat(list4).ToList(); //resultList contains 1, 2, 6, 7

Or you can use SymmetricExceptWith method of HashSet. But it changes the set on which called:

var list1 = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
var list2 = new List<int> { 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 };

var list1Set = list1.ToHashSet(); //.net framework 4.7.2 and .net core 2.0 and above otherwise new HashSet(list1)
list1Set.SymmetricExceptWith(list2);
var resultList = list1Set.ToList(); //resultList contains 1, 2, 6, 7

Tags:

C#