Click here to Skip to main content
15,891,253 members
Articles / Programming Languages / C#
Alternative
Tip/Trick

Diff two lists

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
5.00/5 (2 votes)
19 Dec 2010CPOL 5.1K   1  
I had the same problem, but Contains was a disaster waiting to happen. :(I ended up creating something like: //Lists is a list of 4 lists ( Added, Changed, Deleted , Unchanged )public static Lists Diff(List listA, List listB, IComparer PrimaryCompare, IComparer[]...
I had the same problem, but Contains was a disaster waiting to happen. :(
I ended up creating something like:

//Lists<T> is a list of 4 lists ( Added, Changed, Deleted , Unchanged )

public static Lists<T>  Diff<T>(List<T> listA, List<T> listB, IComparer<T> PrimaryCompare, IComparer[] SecondaryCompares) where T : IComparer
{
    var ret = new Lists<T>();
    int iOne = 0;
    int iTwo = 0;
    if (listB == null && listA == null){}
    else if (listA.Count < 1 && listB == null) { }
    else if (listA.Count < 1)
    {
        ret[States.Added].AddRange(listB);
    }
    else
    {
        PrimaryCompare = (PrimaryCompare == null) ? ((IComparer<T>)listA[0]) : PrimaryCompare;
        listA.Sort(PrimaryCompare);
        listB.Sort(PrimaryCompare);
        States state = States.None;
        while (iOne < listA.Count && iTwo < listB.Count)
        {
            switch (state = ProcessItem(listA[iOne], listB[iTwo], PrimaryCompare, ret, true))
            {
                case States.Added:
                    iTwo += 1;
                    break;
                case States.Deleted:
                    iOne += 1;
                    break;
                default:
                    if (SecondaryCompares != null)
                        ProcessAdditionalCompares(listA[iOne], listB[iTwo], SecondaryCompares, ret);
                    else
                        Add(listA[iOne], listB[iTwo], States.Unchanged, ret);
                    iOne += 1;
                    iTwo += 1;
                    break;
            }
        }
        AddRemainder(list1, ret, States.Deleted, iOne);
        AddRemainder(list2, ret, States.Added, iTwo);
    }
    return ret;
}

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
United States United States
This member has not yet provided a Biography. Assume it's interesting and varied, and probably something to do with programming.

Comments and Discussions

 
-- There are no messages in this forum --