Check if KeyValuePair exists with LINQ's FirstOrDefault

Question

I have a dictionary of type

Dictionary<Guid,int>

I want to return the first instance where a condition is met using

var available = m_AvailableDict.FirstOrDefault(p => p.Value == 0)

However, how do I check if I'm actually getting back a KeyValuePair? I can't seem to use != or == to check against default(KeyValuePair) without a compiler error. There is a similar thread here that doesn't quite seem to have a solution. I'm actually able to solve my particular problem by getting the key and checking the default of Guid, but I'm curious if there's a good way of doing this with the keyvaluepair. Thanks

Answer 1

A way to check against the default value of a struct such as KeyValuePair without specifying the type is to create a new instance using Activator:

if (available.Equals(Activator.CreateInstance(available.GetType())))
{
    Console.WriteLine("Not Found!");
}

Answer 2

you could check if

available.Key==Guid.Empty

Answer 3

What you want is an Any method that gives you the matching element as well. You can easily write this method yourself.

public static class IEnumerableExtensions
{
  public static bool TryGetFirst<TSource>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source,
                                          Func<TSource, bool> predicate,
                                          out TSource first)
  {
    foreach (TSource item in source)
    {
      if (predicate(item))
      {
        first = item;
        return true;
      }
    }

    first = default(TSource);
    return false;
  }
}

Answer 4

Use the default() keyword.

bool exists = !available.Equals(default(KeyValuePair<Guid, int>));

Answer 5

I suggest you change it in this way:

var query = m_AvailableDict.Where(p => p.Value == 0).Take(1).ToList();

You can then see whether the list is empty or not, and take the first value if it's not, e.g.

if (query.Count == 0)
{
    // Take action accordingly
}
else
{
    Guid key = query[0].Key;
    // Use the key
}

Note that there's no real concept of a "first" entry in a dictionary - the order in which it's iterated is not well-defined. If you want to get the key/value pair which was first entered with that value, you'll need an order-preserving dictionary of some kind.

(This is assuming you actually want to know the key - if you're just after an existence check, Marc's solution is the most appropriate.)

Answer 6

If you just care about existence, you could use ContainsValue(0) or Any(p => p.Value == 0) instead? Searching by value is unusual for a Dictionary<,>; if you were searching by key, you could use TryGetValue.

One other approach:

var record = data.Where(p => p.Value == 1)
     .Select(p => new { Key = p.Key, Value = p.Value })
     .FirstOrDefault();

This returns a class - so will be null if not found.