Is there a better way to do this linq sort?

Question

I have the following linq statement that is ordering a list of assets by the sort order of a child item:

 Assets.OrderBy(a => a.GalleryItems != null &&
 a.GalleryItems.FirstOrDefault(gi => gi.ProductItemCode == productId) != null
 ? a.GalleryItems.FirstOrDefault(gi => gi.ProductItemCode == productId).SortOrder : 1000);

I was wondering if there was a more efficient way to do this as I would have thought having to do 2 a.GalleryItems.FirstOrDefault(gi => gi.ProductItemCode == productId) would be pretty poor for performance

Answer 1

You're correct, it can be costly.

You can just expand the lambda expression:

Assets.OrderBy(a => {
 var item = a.GalleryItems != null 
 ? a.GalleryItems.FirstOrDefault(gi => gi.ProductItemCode == productId)
 : null;
 return item != null ? item.SortOrder : 1000;
});

[Quick edit]

The above will work correctly only for LINQ 2 Objects queries.

If you're using EF or any other LINQ database provider, you should leave the query as-is, because it will probably be translated to ISNULL(..., 1000) or something equivalent.

• Pete: This was what I was after - I was wondering if you could set vars in a lamda, now I know. Thanks!
• Patryk Ćwiek: @Pete One important thing here though: it will only work in LINQ 2 Objects. If you're using any database LINQ driver, expanded lambda expressions are not translatable to SQL, at least not by any provider I know. On the other hand, the performance considerations and query structure are also different, since the query will is executed in the database. I added that as an edit so it's clear.
• Pete: Ah, I think I'm fine as it is just querying a c# object from cache rather than the db