How to sum a custom object with LinQ?

Question

First I followed this tutorial to create my Money object: https://www.codeproject.com/articles/837791/money-pattern

Money totalItems = _invoice.InvoiceDetails
    .Sum(y => y.Amount); // Amount is of type Money

I get an compilation exception on y.Amount:

Cannot implicitly convert type 'Money' to 'long?' Cannot convert lambda expression to intended delegate type because some of the return types in the block are not implicitly convertible to the delegate return type

What am I doing wrong?

Here is my Money class:

public class Money
{
    public decimal Amount { get; private set; }
    public CurrencyCode Currency { get; private set; }

    #region Constructors
    public Money() { }
    public Money(Money amount)
    {
        this.Amount = amount.Amount;
        this.Currency = amount.Currency;
    }
    public Money(decimal amount, CurrencyCode currencyCode)
    {
        this.Amount = amount;
        this.Currency = currencyCode;
    }
    public Money(int amount, CurrencyCode currency)
        : this(Convert.ToDecimal(amount), currency)
    {
    }
    public Money(double amount, CurrencyCode currency)
        : this(Convert.ToDecimal(amount), currency)
    {
    }
    #endregion

    #region Comprasion operators
    public static bool operator ==(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if ((object)var1 == null || (object)var2 == null)
            return false;

        if (var1.Currency != var2.Currency) return false;
        return var1.Amount == var2.Amount;
    }


    public static bool operator !=(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        return !(var1 == var2);
    }

    public static bool operator >(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1.Currency != var2.Currency)
            throw new InvalidOperationException("Comprasion between different currencies is not allowed.");

        return var1.Amount > var2.Amount;
    }

    public static bool operator <(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1 == var2) return false;

        return !(var1 > var2);
    }

    public static bool operator <=(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1 < var2 || var1 == var2) return true;

        return false;
    }

    public static bool operator >=(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1 > var2 || var1 == var2) return true;

        return false;
    }
    #endregion

    #region Ariphmetical operations
    public static Money operator +(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1.Currency != var2.Currency)
        {
            throw new InvalidCastException("Calculation is using different currencies!");
        }

        return new Money(var1.Amount + var2.Amount, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator -(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1.Currency != var2.Currency)
        {
            throw new InvalidCastException("Calculation is using different currencies!");
        }

        return new Money(var1.Amount - var2.Amount, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator *(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1.Currency != var2.Currency)
        {
            throw new InvalidCastException("Calculation is using different currencies!");
        }

        return new Money(var1.Amount * var2.Amount, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator /(Money var1, Money var2)
    {
        if (var1.Currency != var2.Currency)
        {
            throw new InvalidCastException("Calculation is using different currencies!");
        }

        return new Money(var1.Amount / var2.Amount, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator *(decimal var1, Money var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1 * var2.Amount, var2.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator *(Money var1, decimal var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1.Amount * var2, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator /(decimal var1, Money var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1 / var2.Amount, var2.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator /(Money var1, decimal var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1.Amount / var2, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator *(int var1, Money var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1 * var2.Amount, var2.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator *(Money var1, int var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1.Amount * var2, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator /(int var1, Money var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1 / var2.Amount, var2.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator /(Money var1, int var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1.Amount / var2, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator *(long var1, Money var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1 * var2.Amount, var2.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator *(Money var1, long var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1.Amount * var2, var1.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator /(long var1, Money var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1 / var2.Amount, var2.Currency);
    }

    public static Money operator /(Money var1, long var2)
    {
        return new Money(var1.Amount / var2, var1.Currency);
    }
    #endregion

    public override bool Equals(object obj)
    {
        if (obj == null) return false;

        Money money = obj as Money;
        return (this.Amount == money.Amount && this.Currency == money.Currency);
    }

    public bool Equals(Money money)
    {
        if ((object)money == null) return false;

        return (this.Amount == money.Amount && this.Currency == money.Currency);
    }

    public override int GetHashCode()
    {
        return base.GetHashCode();
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return this.Amount.ToString();
    }
    #endregion

@shole Really? Yes of course but I loose all the benefit of my Money class. — Bastien Vandamme, Jan 26 '17 at 03:18
Ok, I miss the whole point of your question, you are trying to override the operator and let LINQ do the sum on Money(y.Amount is Money...that's confusing!!) directly....maybe this post can help you a bit? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17717858/linq-sum-on-objects — shole, Jan 26 '17 at 03:27
I doubt that you will succeed in instructing Linq provider how to translate such expression to SQL. While custom classes for things like Money is quite acceptable they should appear on one level up in BAL but not in DAL. — Vitaliy Kalinin, Jan 26 '17 at 07:23

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

Presumably InvoiceDetails is a collection of classes that contain a public Money Amount property, e.g.:

public class InvoiceDetail
{
    public Money Amount { get; set; }
}

In that case, you can use Enumerable.Aggregate() to do the sum:

var sum = InvoiceDetails.Aggregate(new Money(0, InvoiceDetails.First().Amount.Currency), (s, d) => s + d.Amount);

To get rid of the slightly ugly new Money(0, InvoiceDetails.First().Amount.Currency) expression you might want to introduce a special singleton Money.Empty that contains no money and can be added to any type of money. Or modify the static operators to accept a null value for Money and do:

var sum = InvoiceDetails.Aggregate((Money)null, (s, d) => s + d.Amount);

Alternatively, introducing an intermediate Select() might make the expression cleaner:

var sum = InvoiceDetails.Select(d => d.Amount).Aggregate((s, a) => s + a);

The reason that Enumerable.Sum() does not work is that it is defined for a fixed set of enumerable arithmetic types. There is no Sum() for arbitrary types for which arithmetic operator overloads have been introduced, as there's no common interface or type inferencing for such a scenario. (See Is there a constraint that restricts my generic method to numeric types?, to which the answer is, "no".) Of course you could add your own version of Enumerable.Sum() that supports types that provide their own arithmetic, see e.g. this answer for a place to start.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 26 '17 at 05:48

In a similar vein to @dbc's answer. You need to create your own concrete example of the Sum method. This is because operator is static, and not interface-able.

I would actually go a slightly different route from dbc because

The usage of Enumerable.First() causes multiple iterations of the IEnumerable
Enumerable.First() will fail when there are no elements, but will give a poor exception.
Code reuse makes things clearer.

Instead I prefer.

namespace System.Linq //Using System.Linq namespace makes it easier to use
{
    public static class MoneyEnumerable
    {
        public static Money Sum(this IEnumerable<Money> monies)
        {
            return monies.Aggregate((left, right) => left + right);
        }
    }
}

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 20 '20 at 19:23

I recently solved a similar problem with the following two extension methods.

public static Money Sum<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, Money> selector)
    => Sum(source.Select(selector));

public static Money Sum(this IEnumerable<Money> money)
    => money.Aggregate((left, right) => left + right);

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 26 '17 at 04:03

0

You could add an implicit operator that would allow the object to be converted to a type that can be summed.

public static implicit operator decimal(Money money) {
    return money != null ? money.Amount : 0;
}

answered Jan 26 '17 at 04:03

Nkosi

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How to sum a custom object with LinQ?

4 Answers4