LEFT OUTER JOIN in LINQ

Question

How to perform left outer join in C# LINQ to objects without using join-on-equals-into clauses? Is there any way to do that with where clause? Corr

Answer 1

An implementation of left outer join by extension methods could look like

public static IEnumerable LeftJoin(
  this IEnumerable outer, IEnumerable inner
  , Func outerKeySelector, Func innerKeySelector
  , Func resultSelector, IEqualityComparer comparer)
  {
    if (outer == null)
      throw new ArgumentException("outer");

    if (inner == null)
      throw new ArgumentException("inner");

    if (outerKeySelector == null)
      throw new ArgumentException("outerKeySelector");

    if (innerKeySelector == null)
      throw new ArgumentException("innerKeySelector");

    if (resultSelector == null)
      throw new ArgumentException("resultSelector");

    return LeftJoinImpl(outer, inner, outerKeySelector, innerKeySelector, resultSelector, comparer ?? EqualityComparer.Default);
  }

  static IEnumerable LeftJoinImpl(
      IEnumerable outer, IEnumerable inner
      , Func outerKeySelector, Func innerKeySelector
      , Func resultSelector, IEqualityComparer comparer)
  {
    var innerLookup = inner.ToLookup(innerKeySelector, comparer);

    foreach (var outerElment in outer)
    {
      var outerKey = outerKeySelector(outerElment);
      var innerElements = innerLookup[outerKey];

      if (innerElements.Any())
        foreach (var innerElement in innerElements)
          yield return resultSelector(outerElment, innerElement);
      else
        yield return resultSelector(outerElment, default(TInner));
     }
   }

The resultselector then has to take care of the null elements. Fx.

   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
     var inner = new[] { Tuple.Create(1, "1"), Tuple.Create(2, "2"), Tuple.Create(3, "3") };
     var outer = new[] { Tuple.Create(1, "11"), Tuple.Create(2, "22") };

     var res = outer.LeftJoin(inner, item => item.Item1, item => item.Item1, (it1, it2) =>
     new { Key = it1.Item1, V1 = it1.Item2, V2 = it2 != null ? it2.Item2 : default(string) });

     foreach (var item in res)
       Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}, {1}, {2}", item.Key, item.V1, item.V2));
   }