Defines methods to support the comparison of objects for equality.
Namespace: System.Collections.Generic
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
Syntax
Visual Basic (Declaration)
Public Interface IEqualityComparer(Of T)
Dim instance As IEqualityComparer(Of T)
public interface IEqualityComparer<T>
generic<typename T>
public interface class IEqualityComparer
J# supports the use of generic types and methods, but not the declaration of new ones.
JScript does not support generic types and methods.
Type Parameters
- T
The type of objects to compare.
Remarks
This interface allows the implementation of customized equality comparison for collections. That is, you can create your own definition of equality for type T, and specify that this definition be used with a collection type that accepts the IEqualityComparer generic interface. In the .NET Framework, constructors of the Dictionary generic collection type accept this interface.
A default implementation of this interface is provided by the Default property of the EqualityComparer generic class. The StringComparer class implements IEqualityComparer of type String.
This interface supports only equality comparisons. Customization of comparisons for sorting and ordering is provided by the IComparer generic interface.
Platforms
Windows 98, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows CE, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, Windows Mobile for Smartphone, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Starter Edition
The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 is supported on Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP SP2, and Windows Server 2003 SP1.
Version Information
.NET Framework
Supported in: 3.0, 2.0
.NET Compact Framework
Supported in: 2.0
XNA Framework
Supported in: 1.0
See Also