What is fastest way to find number of matches between arrays?

Question

Currently, I am testing every integer element against each other to find which ones match. The arrays do not contain duplicates within their own set. Also, the arrays are not always equal lengths. Are there any tricks to speed this up? I am doing this thousands of times, so it's starting to become a bottle neck in my program, which is in C#.

Answer 1

You could use LINQ:

var query = firstArray.Intersect(secondArray);

Or if the arrays are already sorted you could iterate over the two arrays yourself:

int[] a = { 1, 3, 5 };
int[] b = { 2, 3, 4, 5 };

List<int> result = new List<int>();
int ia = 0;
int ib = 0;
while (ia < a.Length && ib < b.Length)
{
    if (a[ia] == b[ib])
    {
        result.Add(a[ia]);
        ib++;
        ia++;
    }
    else if (a[ia] < b[ib])
    {
        ia++;
    }
    else
    {
        ib++;
    }
}

Answer 2

Use a HashSet

var set = new HashSet<int>(firstArray);
set.IntersectWith(secondArray);

The set now contains only the values that exist in both arrays.