How to get duplicate items from a list using LINQ? [duplicate]

Question

var duplicates = lst.GroupBy(s => s)
    .SelectMany(grp => grp.Skip(1));

Note that this will return all duplicates, so if you only want to know which items are duplicated in the source list, you could apply Distinct to the resulting sequence or use the solution given by Mark Byers.

Here is one way to do it:

List<String> duplicates = lst.GroupBy(x => x)
                             .Where(g => g.Count() > 1)
                             .Select(g => g.Key)
                             .ToList();

The GroupBy groups the elements that are the same together, and the Where filters out those that only appear once, leaving you with only the duplicates.

Here's another option:

var list = new List<string> { "6", "1", "2", "4", "6", "5", "1" };

var set = new HashSet<string>();
var duplicates = list.Where(x => !set.Add(x));

I know it's not the answer to the original question, but you may find yourself here with this problem.

If you want all of the duplicate items in your results, the following works.

var duplicates = list
    .GroupBy( x => x )               // group matching items
    .Where( g => g.Skip(1).Any() )   // where the group contains more than one item
    .SelectMany( g => g );           // re-expand the groups with more than one item

In my situation I need all duplicates so that I can mark them in the UI as being errors.

I wrote this extension method based off @Lee's response to the OP. Note, a default parameter was used (requiring C# 4.0). However, an overloaded method call in C# 3.0 would suffice.

/// <summary>
/// Method that returns all the duplicates (distinct) in the collection.
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">The type of the collection.</typeparam>
/// <param name="source">The source collection to detect for duplicates</param>
/// <param name="distinct">Specify <b>true</b> to only return distinct elements.</param>
/// <returns>A distinct list of duplicates found in the source collection.</returns>
/// <remarks>This is an extension method to IEnumerable&lt;T&gt;</remarks>
public static IEnumerable<T> Duplicates<T>
         (this IEnumerable<T> source, bool distinct = true)
{
     if (source == null)
     {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("source");
     }

     // select the elements that are repeated
     IEnumerable<T> result = source.GroupBy(a => a).SelectMany(a => a.Skip(1));

     // distinct?
     if (distinct == true)
     {
        // deferred execution helps us here
        result = result.Distinct();
     }

     return result;
}