Use LINQ to move item to top of list

Is there a way to move an item of say id=10 as the first item in a list using LINQ?

Item A - id =5
Item B - id = 10
Item C - id =12
Item D - id =1

In this case how can I elegantly move Item C to the top of my List<T> collection?

This is the best I have right now:

var allCountries = repository.GetCountries();
var topitem = allCountries.Single(x => x.id == 592);  
var finalList = new List<Country>();
finalList.Add(topitem);
finalList = finalList.Concat(allCountries.Where(x=> x.id != 592)).ToList();

What do you want to order by, other than the known top item? If you don't care, you can do this:

var query = allCountries.OrderBy(x => x.id != 592).ToList();

Basically, "false" comes before "true"...

Admittedly I don't know what this does in LINQ to SQL etc. You may need to stop it from doing the ordering in the database:

var query = allCountries.AsEnumerable()
                        .OrderBy(x => x.id != 592)
                        .ToList();

LINQ is strong in querying collections, creating projections over existing queries or generating new queries based on existing collections. It is not meant as a tool to re-order existing collections inline. For that type of operation it's best to use the type at hande.

Assuming you have a type with a similar definition as below

class Item {
  public int Id { get; set; }
  ..
}

Then try the following

List<Item> list = GetTheList();
var index = list.FindIndex(x => x.Id == 12);
var item = list[index];
list[index] = list[0];
list[0] = item;

Linq generallyworks on Enumerables, so it doesn't now that the underlying type is a collection. So for moving the item on top of the list I would suggest using something like (if you need to preserve the order)

var idx = myList.FindIndex(x => x.id == 592);
var item = myList[idx];
myList.RemoveAt(idx);
myList.Insert(0, item);

If your function returns only an IEnumerable, you can use the ToList() method to convert it to a List first

If you don't preserve the order you can simply swap the values at position 0 and position idx

var allCountries = repository.GetCountries();
allCountries.OrderByDescending(o => o.id == 12).ThenBy(o => o.id) 

This will insert the object with id=12 at the top of the list and rotate the rest down, preserving the order.

Here is an extension method you might want to use. It moves the element(s) that match the given predicate to the top, preserving order.

public static IEnumerable<T> MoveToTop(IEnumerable<T> list, Func<T, bool> func) {
    return list.Where(func)
               .Concat(list.Where(item => !func(item)));
}

In terms of complexity, I think it would make two passes on the collection, making it O(n), like the Insert/Remove version, but better than Jon Skeet's OrderBy suggestion.

I know this a old question but I did it like this

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var numbers = new int[] { 5, 10, 12, 1 };

        var ordered = numbers.OrderBy(num => num != 10 ? num : -1);

        foreach (var num in ordered)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("number is {0}", num);
        }

        Console.ReadLine();
    }
}

this prints:

number is 10
number is 1
number is 5
number is 12

You can "group by" in two groups with Boolean key, and then sort them

var finalList= allCountries
                .GroupBy(x => x.id != 592)
                .OrderBy(g => g.Key)
                .SelectMany(g => g.OrderBy(x=> x.id ));

public static IEnumerable<T> ServeFirst<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, 
    Predicate<T> p)
{
    var list = new List<T>();

    foreach (var s in source)
    {
        if (p(s))
            yield return s;
        else
            list.Add(s);
    }

    foreach (var s in list)
        yield return s;
}

Its interesting the number of approaches you find when trying to solve a problem.

var service = AutogateProcessorService.GetInstance();
var allConfigs = service.GetAll();
allConfigs = allConfigs.OrderBy(c => c.ThreadDescription).ToList();
var systemQueue = allConfigs.First(c => c.AcquirerId == 0);
allConfigs.Remove(systemQueue);
allConfigs.Insert(0, systemQueue);

To also check if the item was found without Exception, something like:

var allCountries = repository.GetCountries();
var lookup = allCountries.ToLookup(x => x.id == 592);  
var finalList = lookup[true].Concat(lookup[false]).ToList();
if ( lookup[true].Count() != 1 ) YouAreInTrouble();

Even easier if you have the object:

listOfObjects.Remove(object);
listOfObjects.Insert(0, object);

I wrote a static extension method to do this. Note this doesn't preserve the order, it simply swaps the item out. If you needed to preserve the order you should do a rotate not a simple swap.

/// <summary>
/// Moves the item to the front of the list if it exists, if it does not it returns false
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
/// <param name="collection"></param>
/// <param name="predicate"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static bool MoveToFrontOfListWhere<T>(this List<T> collection, Func<T, bool> predicate)
{
	if (collection == null || collection.Count <= 0) return false;

	int index = -1;
	for (int i = 0; i < collection.Count; i++)
	{
		T element = collection.ElementAt(i);
		if (!predicate(element)) continue;
		index = i;
		break;
	}

	if (index == -1) return false;

	T item = collection[index];
	collection[index] = collection[0];
	collection[0] = item;
	return true;
}