Get Earliest date from from IEnumerable<DateTime>

Question

I have an IEnumerable<DateTime> with a number of dates in it. How would I get the earliest date from that collection?

Thanks!

Dave

Answer 1

var earliest = collection.Min();

Answer 2

You can do this immediately with LINQ using Enumerable.Min.

DateTime minDate = dateCollection.Min();

Since DateTime implements IComparable<DateTime>, Enumerable.Min will use DateTime.CompareTo to find the minimum DateTime in the collection.