.Contains() on a list of custom class objects

You need to implement IEquatable or override Equals() and GetHashCode()

For example:

public class CartProduct : IEquatable<CartProduct>
{
    public Int32 ID;
    public String Name;
    public Int32 Number;
    public Decimal CurrentPrice;

    public CartProduct(Int32 ID, String Name, Int32 Number, Decimal CurrentPrice)
    {
        this.ID = ID;
        this.Name = Name;
        this.Number = Number;
        this.CurrentPrice = CurrentPrice;
    }

    public String ToString()
    {
        return Name;
    }

    public bool Equals( CartProduct other )
    {
        // Would still want to check for null etc. first.
        return this.ID == other.ID && 
               this.Name == other.Name && 
               this.Number == other.Number && 
               this.CurrentPrice == other.CurrentPrice;
    }
}

By default reference types have reference equality (i.e. two instances are only equal if they are the same object).

You need to override Object.Equals (and Object.GetHashCode to match) to implement your own equality. (And it is then good practice to implement an equality, ==, operator.)


If you are using .NET 3.5 or newer you can use LINQ extension methods to achieve a "contains" check with the Any extension method:

if(CartProducts.Any(prod => prod.ID == p.ID))

This will check for the existence of a product within CartProducts which has an ID matching the ID of p. You can put any boolean expression after the => to perform the check on.

This also has the benefit of working for LINQ-to-SQL queries as well as in-memory queries, where Contains doesn't.


It checks to see whether the specific object is contained in the list.

You might be better using the Find method on the list.

Here's an example

List<CartProduct> lst = new List<CartProduct>();

CartProduct objBeer;
objBeer = lst.Find(x => (x.Name == "Beer"));

Hope that helps

You should also look at LinQ - overkill for this perhaps, but a useful tool nonetheless...