How to get only the unique values out of a list of strings in C#?

Question

Is there an easy way to get only the unique values out of a list of strings in C#? My google-fu is failing me today.

(I know I can put them in another structure and pull them out again. I'm looking for stupidly-easy, like Ruby's .uniq method. C# has bloody well everything else, so I'm probably just using the wrong synonym.)

Specifically, this is coming from Linq, so if Linq had a built-in way to select only unique strings, that would be even cooler.

Quintin Robinson · Accepted Answer · 2009-02-18 23:04:50Z

10

List<string> strings = new string[] { "Hello", "Hello", "World" }.ToList();

strings = strings.Distinct().ToList();

answered Feb 18, 2009 at 23:04

Quintin Robinson

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2 Comments

ljs Over a year ago

but dude... no boom shaka-laka?!

Quintin Robinson Over a year ago

You see I just like BOOOM! But I wasn't sure if I should.. =P

ljs · Accepted Answer · 2009-02-18 23:06:32Z

6

In .net 3.5:-

var strings = new List<string> { "one", "two", "two", "three" };
var distinctStrings = strings.Distinct(); // IEnumerable<string>
var listDistinctStrings = distinctStrings.ToList(); // List<string>

Boom shaka-laka!

answered Feb 18, 2009 at 23:06

ljs

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2 Comments

Quintin Robinson Over a year ago

You and your verbose examples, where is the dirty redundant cycle wasting code like mine!?

ljs Over a year ago

I spent the energy I could have spent on that, writing 'boom shaka-laka'! Almost goes without saying ;-)

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