List containing:
aaaaa
aabbb
abbcc
abccc
abcdd

var one = (from p in List where p.StartsWith(“abcd”) select p).FirstOrDefault();

one is null.

How is that possible?

or myTable.Take(1).FirstOrDefault ? for select top 1 * from myTable 

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return list.Where(blah blah).FirstOrDefault();

Nice.

@Jamie

The example above is using List, so your arguments are fair. However, if you where working with IEnumerable, you would be forced to enumerate somehow before your example would work. (such as calling ToList())

In that case, FirstOrDefault does it all in one shot, is is much simpler, and doesnt force you to copy to the whole collection to a list when all you want is one object.

Example 2: return list.Find(“whatever”);
or, if List.Find(T item) did not yet exist, return list.Contains(“whatever”) ? “whatever” : null;

Are not all that worse than the FirstOrDefault code, are they?

My personal favorite Linq extension methods are of the filtering and aggregate types. I use list.Any(item => item.IsSomethingTrue) and list.Max(item => item.Property) a lot.