Sudoku algorithm in C#

Question

I need one liner (or close to it) that verifies that given array of 9 elements doesn't contain repeating numbers 1,2,3,...,9. Repeating zeroes do not count (they represent empty cells).

The best I have came out so far is:

var a = new int[9] {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9};
var itIsOk = a.Join(a, i => i, j => j, (x, y) => x)
    .GroupBy(y => y).Where(g => g.Key > 0 && g.Count() > 1).Count() == 0;

If you don't want to solve my problems :), could you at least tell if the above algorithm works correctly?

And, yes, a have read this one.

Answer 1

This is about 50-250 times faster than a LINQ solution (depending on how early the duplicate is found):

public static bool IsValid(int[] values) {
    int flag = 0;
    foreach (int value in values) {
        if (value != 0) {
            int bit = 1 << value;
            if ((flag & bit) != 0) return false;
            flag |= bit;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

Answer 2

Lucky for you I built a sudoku solver myself not too long ago :) The whole thing was about 200 lines of C#, and it would solve the toughest puzzles I could find line in 4 seconds or less.

Performance probably isn't that great due to the use of .Count, but it should work:

!a.Any(i => i != 0 && a.Where(j => j != 0 && i == j).Count >  1)

Also, the j != 0 part isn't really needed, but it should help things run a bit faster.

[edit:] kvb's answer gave me another idea:

!a.Where(i => i != 0).GroupBy(i => i).Any(gp => gp.Count() > 1)

Filter the 0's before grouping. Though based on how IEnumerable works it may not matter any.

Either way, For best performance replace .Count > 1 in either of those with a new IEnumerable extension method that looks like this:

bool MoreThanOne(this IEnumerable<T> enumerable, Predictate<T> pred)
{
    bool flag = false;
    foreach (T item in enumerable)
    {
       if (pred(item))
       {
          if (flag)
             return true;
          flag = true;
       }
    }
    return false;
}

It probably won't matter too much since arrays are limited to 9 items, but if you call it a lot it might add up.