In Part 1 of this series, I created a basic class that would find differences between two versions of the same list. I’ve made some improvements to the original implementation that I’d like to share.

To begin with, I read this post on the difference between the Any() and Count() extension methods. While List<T> does implement ICollection, I wanted to change the structure of DiffResult<T> so that if I decide to change the datatype of Additions, Deletions, and Modifications, the IsEmpty property will be more efficient. To that end, I changed IsEmpty as follows:

public bool IsEmpty
{
    get { return !this.HasChanges;  }   
}

public bool HasChanges
{
    get { return this.Additions.Any()
                 || this.Deletions.Any()
                 || this.Modifications.Any(); }
}

The next thing I wanted to be able to do is automatically synchronize changes from the newlist back to the oldlist. Here is the unit test:

[Test]
public void ResolveChangesBetweenTwoLists()
{
    // Arrange: Declare any variables or set up any conditions
    //          required by your test.
    var newVersion = new List<Entity>();
    var oldVersion = new List<Entity>();

    var identityComparer = new EntityIdentityComparer();
    var modificationComparer = new EntityEqualityComparer();

    var diff = new Diff<Entity>(identityComparer, modificationComparer);

    newVersion.Add(new Entity() { Id = 1, Name = "One"}); // addition
    newVersion.Add(new Entity() {Id =2, Name="2"}); // modification

    oldVersion.Add(new Entity() { Id = 2, Name = "Two"}); // modification
    oldVersion.Add(new Entity() { Id=3, Name="Three"}); // deletion

    // Act:     Perform the activity under test.
    diff.Resolve(newVersion, oldVersion);
    var result = diff.Execute(newVersion, oldVersion);

    // Assert:  Verify that the activity under test had the
    //          expected results
    Assert.IsTrue(result.IsEmpty); // all changes should have been resolved.
}

My first stab at the implementation is as follows:

public class Diff<T>
{
    public void Resolve(IList<T> newVersion, IList<T> oldVersion)
    {
        var results = this.Execute(newVersion, oldVersion);

        foreach (var element in results.Deletions)
            oldVersion.Remove(element);

        foreach (var element in results.Additions)
            oldVersion.Add(element);

        foreach (var element in results.Modifications)
        {
            var keyItem = element;
            var item = oldVersion.First(e => _identityComparer.Equals(e, keyItem));
            var index = oldVersion.IndexOf(item);
            oldVersion[index] = element;
        }
    }

…snipped

}

This implementation is fine as far as it goes, but there is a drawback that I don’t like. If the user of this codes wishes to determine if there are changes prior to executing the Resolve method, s/he is required to execute it a second time during the Resolve step. I like that placing Resolve() on the Diff class provides a single-step execution, so I’m going to move the real work to the DiffResult class, but leave the Resolve method where it is. I changed the implementation of Diff.Resolve() to this:

public void Resolve(IList<T> newVersion, IList<T> oldVersion)
{
    var results = this.Execute(newVersion, oldVersion);
    results.Resolve(oldVersion, this._identityComparer);
}

I added DiffResult.Resolve() as follows:

public void Resolve(IList<T> oldVersion, IEqualityComparer<T> identityComparer)
{
    this.Deletions.ForEach(e => oldVersion.Remove(e));
    this.Additions.ForEach(oldVersion.Add);
    this.Modifications.ForEach( e =>
                                    {
                                        var item =
                                            oldVersion.First(element => identityComparer.Equals(element, e));
                                        var index = oldVersion.IndexOf(item);
                                        oldVersion[index] = e;
                                    }
        );

}

The updated source code for this solution can be found here.