Question
I am trying to see if I can use LINQ to solve a problem I am having. I have a collection of items that contain an Enum (TypeCode) and a User object, and I need to flatten it out to show in a grid. It's hard to explain, so let me show a quick example.
Collection has items like so:
TypeCode | User
---------------
1 | Don Smith
1 | Mike Jones
1 | James Ray
2 | Tom Rizzo
2 | Alex Homes
3 | Andy Bates
I need the output to be:
1 | 2 | 3
Don Smith | Tom Rizzo | Andy Bates
Mike Jones | Alex Homes |
James Ray | |
Thanks to anyone who can help me! I've tried doing this using foreach, but I can't do it that way because I'd be inserting new items to the collection in the foreach, causing an error.
Solution
I'm not saying it is a great way to pivot - but it is a pivot...
// sample data
var data = new[] {
new { Foo = 1, Bar = "Don Smith"},
new { Foo = 1, Bar = "Mike Jones"},
new { Foo = 1, Bar = "James Ray"},
new { Foo = 2, Bar = "Tom Rizzo"},
new { Foo = 2, Bar = "Alex Homes"},
new { Foo = 3, Bar = "Andy Bates"},
};
// group into columns, and select the rows per column
var grps = from d in data
group d by d.Foo
into grp
select new {
Foo = grp.Key,
Bars = grp.Select(d2 => d2.Bar).ToArray()
};
// find the total number of (data) rows
int rows = grps.Max(grp => grp.Bars.Length);
// output columns
foreach (var grp in grps) {
Console.Write(grp.Foo + "\t");
}
Console.WriteLine();
// output data
for (int i = 0; i < rows; i++) {
foreach (var grp in grps) {
Console.Write((i < grp.Bars.Length ? grp.Bars[i] : null) + "\t");
}
Console.WriteLine();
}
OTHER TIPS
Marc's answer gives sparse matrix that can't be pumped into Grid directly.
I tried to expand the code from the link provided by Vasu as below:
public static Dictionary<TKey1, Dictionary<TKey2, TValue>> Pivot3<TSource, TKey1, TKey2, TValue>(
this IEnumerable<TSource> source
, Func<TSource, TKey1> key1Selector
, Func<TSource, TKey2> key2Selector
, Func<IEnumerable<TSource>, TValue> aggregate)
{
return source.GroupBy(key1Selector).Select(
x => new
{
X = x.Key,
Y = source.GroupBy(key2Selector).Select(
z => new
{
Z = z.Key,
V = aggregate(from item in source
where key1Selector(item).Equals(x.Key)
&& key2Selector(item).Equals(z.Key)
select item
)
}
).ToDictionary(e => e.Z, o => o.V)
}
).ToDictionary(e => e.X, o => o.Y);
}
internal class Employee
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Department { get; set; }
public string Function { get; set; }
public decimal Salary { get; set; }
}
public void TestLinqExtenions()
{
var l = new List<Employee>() {
new Employee() { Name = "Fons", Department = "R&D", Function = "Trainer", Salary = 2000 },
new Employee() { Name = "Jim", Department = "R&D", Function = "Trainer", Salary = 3000 },
new Employee() { Name = "Ellen", Department = "Dev", Function = "Developer", Salary = 4000 },
new Employee() { Name = "Mike", Department = "Dev", Function = "Consultant", Salary = 5000 },
new Employee() { Name = "Jack", Department = "R&D", Function = "Developer", Salary = 6000 },
new Employee() { Name = "Demy", Department = "Dev", Function = "Consultant", Salary = 2000 }};
var result5 = l.Pivot3(emp => emp.Department, emp2 => emp2.Function, lst => lst.Sum(emp => emp.Salary));
var result6 = l.Pivot3(emp => emp.Function, emp2 => emp2.Department, lst => lst.Count());
}
* can't say anything about the performance though.
You can use Linq's .ToLookup to group in the manner you are looking for.
var lookup = data.ToLookup(d => d.TypeCode, d => d.User);
Then it's a matter of putting it into a form that your consumer can make sense of. For instance:
//Warning: untested code
var enumerators = lookup.Select(g => g.GetEnumerator()).ToList();
int columns = enumerators.Count;
while(columns > 0)
{
for(int i = 0; i < enumerators.Count; ++i)
{
var enumerator = enumerators[i];
if(enumator == null) continue;
if(!enumerator.MoveNext())
{
--columns;
enumerators[i] = null;
}
}
yield return enumerators.Select(e => (e != null) ? e.Current : null);
}
Put that in an IEnumerable<> method and it will (probably) return a collection (rows) of collections (column) of User where a null is put in a column that has no data.
I guess this is similar to Marc's answer, but I'll post it since I spent some time working on it. The results are separated by " | "
as in your example. It also uses the IGrouping<int, string>
type returned from the LINQ query when using a group by instead of constructing a new anonymous type. This is tested, working code.
var Items = new[] {
new { TypeCode = 1, UserName = "Don Smith"},
new { TypeCode = 1, UserName = "Mike Jones"},
new { TypeCode = 1, UserName = "James Ray"},
new { TypeCode = 2, UserName = "Tom Rizzo"},
new { TypeCode = 2, UserName = "Alex Homes"},
new { TypeCode = 3, UserName = "Andy Bates"}
};
var Columns = from i in Items
group i.UserName by i.TypeCode;
Dictionary<int, List<string>> Rows = new Dictionary<int, List<string>>();
int RowCount = Columns.Max(g => g.Count());
for (int i = 0; i <= RowCount; i++) // Row 0 is the header row.
{
Rows.Add(i, new List<string>());
}
int RowIndex;
foreach (IGrouping<int, string> c in Columns)
{
Rows[0].Add(c.Key.ToString());
RowIndex = 1;
foreach (string user in c)
{
Rows[RowIndex].Add(user);
RowIndex++;
}
for (int r = RowIndex; r <= Columns.Count(); r++)
{
Rows[r].Add(string.Empty);
}
}
foreach (List<string> row in Rows.Values)
{
Console.WriteLine(row.Aggregate((current, next) => current + " | " + next));
}
Console.ReadLine();
I also tested it with this input:
var Items = new[] {
new { TypeCode = 1, UserName = "Don Smith"},
new { TypeCode = 3, UserName = "Mike Jones"},
new { TypeCode = 3, UserName = "James Ray"},
new { TypeCode = 2, UserName = "Tom Rizzo"},
new { TypeCode = 2, UserName = "Alex Homes"},
new { TypeCode = 3, UserName = "Andy Bates"}
};
Which produced the following results showing that the first column doesn't need to contain the longest list. You could use OrderBy
to get the columns ordered by TypeCode if needed.
1 | 3 | 2
Don Smith | Mike Jones | Tom Rizzo
| James Ray | Alex Homes
| Andy Bates |
@Sanjaya.Tio I was intrigued by your answer and created this adaptation which minimizes keySelector execution. (untested)
public static Dictionary<TKey1, Dictionary<TKey2, TValue>> Pivot3<TSource, TKey1, TKey2, TValue>(
this IEnumerable<TSource> source
, Func<TSource, TKey1> key1Selector
, Func<TSource, TKey2> key2Selector
, Func<IEnumerable<TSource>, TValue> aggregate)
{
var lookup = source.ToLookup(x => new {Key1 = keySelector1(x), Key2 = keySelector2(x)});
List<TKey1> key1s = lookup.Select(g => g.Key.Key1).Distinct().ToList();
List<TKey2> key2s = lookup.Select(g => g.Key.Key2).Distinct().ToList();
var resultQuery =
from key1 in key1s
from key2 in key2s
let lookupKey = new {Key1 = key1, Key2 = key2}
let g = lookup[lookupKey]
let resultValue = g.Any() ? aggregate(g) : default(TValue)
select new {Key1 = key1, Key2 = key2, ResultValue = resultValue};
Dictionary<TKey1, Dictionary<TKey2, TValue>> result = new Dictionary<TKey1, Dictionary<TKey2, TValue>>();
foreach(var resultItem in resultQuery)
{
TKey1 key1 = resultItem.Key1;
TKey2 key2 = resultItem.Key2;
TValue resultValue = resultItem.ResultValue;
if (!result.ContainsKey(key1))
{
result[key1] = new Dictionary<TKey2, TValue>();
}
var subDictionary = result[key1];
subDictionary[key2] = resultValue;
}
return result;
}