Checking if a list is empty with LINQ

Solution 1:

You could do this:

public static Boolean IsEmpty<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source)
{
    if (source == null)
        return true; // or throw an exception
    return !source.Any();
}

Edit: Note that simply using the .Count method will be fast if the underlying source actually has a fast Count property. A valid optimization above would be to detect a few base types and simply use the .Count property of those, instead of the .Any() approach, but then fall back to .Any() if no guarantee can be made.

Solution 2:

I would make one small addition to the code you seem to have settled on: check also for ICollection, as this is implemented even by some non-obsolete generic classes as well (i.e., Queue<T> and Stack<T>). I would also use as instead of is as it's more idiomatic and has been shown to be faster.

public static bool IsEmpty<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list)
{
    if (list == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("list");
    }

    var genericCollection = list as ICollection<T>;
    if (genericCollection != null)
    {
        return genericCollection.Count == 0;
    }

    var nonGenericCollection = list as ICollection;
    if (nonGenericCollection != null)
    {
        return nonGenericCollection.Count == 0;
    }

    return !list.Any();
}