How would you get the index of the lowest value in an int array?

Question

Considering that this is a very basic task, I could not think of an appropriately easy way to do it. How would you get the index of the lowest value in an int array? Using L

Answer 1

LINQ probably isn't the best solution for this problem, but here's another variation that is O(n). It doesn't sort and only traverses the array once.

var arr = new int[] { 3, 1, 0, 5 };
int pos = Enumerable.Range(0, arr.Length)
    .Aggregate((a, b) => (arr[a] < arr[b]) ? a : b); // returns 2

Update: Answering the original question directly, this is how I would do it:

var arr = new int[] { 3, 1, 0, 5 };
int pos = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < arr.Length; i++)
{
    if (arr[i] < arr[pos]) { pos = i; }
}
// pos == 2

No, it doesn't use LINQ. Yes, it is more than one line. But it is really simple and really fast. Make it into a tiny little method and call it from anywhere on a single line: pos = FindMinIndex(arr);