LINQ implementation of Cartesian Product with pruning

Question

I hope someone is able to help me with what is, at least to me, quite a tricky algorithm.

The Problem

I have a List (1 <= size <= 5, but siz

Answer 1

You should implement your own IEqualityComparer<IEnumerable<int>> and then use that in Distinct().

The choice of hash code in the IEqualityComparer depends on your actual data, but I think something like this should be adequate if your actual data resemble those in your examples:

class UnorderedQeuenceComparer : IEqualityComparer<IEnumerable<int>>
{
    public bool Equals(IEnumerable<int> x, IEnumerable<int> y)
    {
        return x.OrderBy(i => i).SequenceEqual(y.OrderBy(i => i));
    }

    public int GetHashCode(IEnumerable<int> obj)
    {
        return obj.Sum(i => i * i);
    }
}

The important part is that GetHashCode() should be O(N), sorting would be too slow.

Answer 2

void Main()
{
    var query =     from a in new int[] { 1 }
                    from b in new int[] { 2, 3 }
                    from c in new int[] { 2, 3 }
                    from d in new int[] { 4 }                   
                    from e in new int[] { 2, 3 }
                    select new int[] { a, b, c, d, e }; 
    query.Distinct(new ArrayComparer());
        //.Dump();
}
 public class ArrayComparer : IEqualityComparer<int[]>
    {
        public bool Equals(int[] x, int[] y)
        {            
            if (x == null || y == null)
                return false;

            return x.OrderBy(i => i).SequenceEqual<int>(y.OrderBy(i => i));

        }

        public int GetHashCode(int[] obj)
        {
            if ( obj == null || obj.Length == 0)
                return 0;
            var hashcode = obj[0];
            for (int i = 1; i < obj.Length; i++)
            {
                hashcode ^= obj[i];
            }
            return hashcode;
        }
    }

Answer 3

The finalised solution to the whole combining of multisets, then pruning the result-sets to remove duplicates problem ended up in a helper class as a static method. It takes svick's much appreciated answer and injects the IEqualityComparer dependency into the existing CartesianProduct answer I found at Eric Lipperts's blog here (I'd recommend reading his post as it explains the iterations in his thinking and why the linq implimentation is the best).

static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> CartesianProduct<T>(IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> sequences,
                                                       IEqualityComparer<IEnumerable<T>> sequenceComparer)
{
    IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> emptyProduct = new[] { Enumerable.Empty<T>() };
    var resultsSet = sequences.Aggregate(emptyProduct, (accumulator, sequence) => from accseq in accumulator
                                                                                  from item in sequence
                                                                                  select accseq.Concat(new[] { item }));

    if (sequenceComparer != null)
        return resultsSet.Distinct(sequenceComparer);
    else
        return resultsSet;
}