Comparing two objects' properties simply in c#

Question

I have a class with lots of properties. A shallow copy is enough to fully replicate the object.

I need to compare an object just to check if it contains exactly the same values as another.

My ideas:

The first and most obvious solution is just to create a huge method block that compares each property, one after the other.

The second would be to serialize each object and hash the file or do some sort of md5 checksum on it. (Would this actually work?)

The third is to do some sort of reflection on the object, which would automate the first option, but create an added level of complexity.

Speed isn't really an issue.

I'm interested to hear thoughts, or any other methods I am missing to do such a thing.

Edit: Thanks all. My solution (Modified to now be recursive on generic items):

public static bool IsSame<T>(T objA, T objB)
{
    var type = typeof(T);
    var properties = type.GetProperties();
    foreach (var pi in properties.Where(a => a.CanRead))
    {
        if (pi.Name == "Item")
        {
            var piCount = properties.FirstOrDefault(a => a.Name == "Count");
            int count = -1;
            if (piCount != null && piCount.PropertyType == typeof(System.Int32))
                count = (int)piCount.GetValue(objA, null);
            if (count > 0)
            {
                for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)
                {
                    dynamic child1 = pi.GetValue(objA, new object[] { i });
                    dynamic child2 = pi.GetValue(objB, new object[] { i });
                    return IsSame(child1, child2);
                }
            }
        }
        else
        {
            var val1 = type.GetProperty(pi.Name).GetValue(objA, null);
            var val2 = type.GetProperty(pi.Name).GetValue(objB, null);
            if (val1 != val2 && (val1 == null || !val1.Equals(val2)))
                return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

i'd go with reflection unless the class structure isn't prone to changing. if it *won't* change, i'd choose first solution instead (easy to read, easy to mantain) — Alex, Jan 19 '12 at 15:07
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/506096/comparing-object-properties-in-c-sharp there's solution using reflection. — Giedrius, Jan 19 '12 at 15:11

Rich O'Kelly · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-27T15:33:23.593

Most serializers are designed to ensure that data retains its integrity during serialization and deserialization, not to produce a consistent serialized format. I would avoid using serialization for this purpose.

You may consider implementing IEquatable, to have each instance capable of comparing itself with instances of the same type. Or a class do do the comparisons for you that implements IEqualityComparer. How they do this comparison may be the 'big method' that compares properties one after the other, or uses reflection.

Reflection can be a fairly quick and simple way to achieve your goal but can cause problems down the line (for example if someone adds a property to your type that should not be included for comparing equality), but obviously the converse is also true (someone adds a property that should be checked for equality, but the equality comparison isn't updated). Which approach you use should generally be decided by how comfortable the team is with each approach in tandem with the context in which the class will be used.

In your case I'd probably recommend using the reflection based approach since you wish to check the result of a shallow clone operation, so all properties should be equal.

As an aside, I'd recommend using the MemberwiseClone method to create the clone, which would lessen the need for such stringent tests.

I think you'd want IEquatable rather than IComparable. IComparable is for sorting, not equivalence. — Forgotten Semicolon, Jan 19 '12 at 15:11
+1 for suggesting good interfaces to to look into implementing. — pseudocoder, Jan 19 '12 at 15:15

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 11 '19 at 20:57

The third option (reflection) would be the slowest, but it would also be the most robust/testable.

The hash code would be very similar to the first option, since you would have to call all of your member variables, so 1 and 2 would require you to update your .Equals(obj) and .GenerateHash() methods every time you modify your member variable lists.

Here is some code to get you started:

foreach (FieldInfo field in this.GetType().GetFields())
{
    if (o[field.Name] == null)
    {
        if (!field.GetValue(this).Equals(o[field.Name]))
            return false;
    }
    else
    {
        return false;
    }
}

return true;

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 19 '12 at 15:13

Another thought is that if the properties return simple value types you could group them into immutable value types of their own. For instance, if you have a customer with properties string Address1 string Address2 string City string State string Zip, you could create a value type Address that implements its own equality comparer and use that.

Not sure if this applies to your situation, but I've found that when I have a class with a lot of properties, it is often possible to do this, and it tends to make my classes simpler and easier to reason about.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 19 '12 at 15:19

If you serialize you have to specify the serialization order on each Field/Property to ensure that all data is serialized int the same order. But all you would achieve is to implement GetHashCode() in an external class.

GetHashCode() has some examples on how to override it, so look there first.

If your class has a lot of fields, and you don't want to write all the code by hand. You could use reflection to autogenerate the code. If your class changes from time to time then you could create a partial class with the GetHashCode() implementation in a T4 template.

Comparing two objects' properties simply in c#

4 Answers4