EDIT: This is now part of MoreLINQ.
What you need is a “distinct-by” effectively. I don’t believe it’s part of LINQ as it stands, although it’s fairly easy to write:
public static IEnumerable<TSource> DistinctBy<TSource, TKey> (this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TKey> keySelector) { HashSet<TKey> seenKeys = new HashSet<TKey>(); foreach (TSource element in source) { if (seenKeys.Add(keySelector(element))) { yield return element; } } }
So to find the distinct values using just the Id
property, you could use:
var query = people.DistinctBy(p => p.Id);
And to use multiple properties, you can use anonymous types, which implement equality appropriately:
var query = people.DistinctBy(p => new { p.Id, p.Name });
Untested, but it should work (and it now at least compiles).
It assumes the default comparer for the keys though – if you want to pass in an equality comparer, just pass it on to the HashSet
constructor.