I think this was the first time I ever used the Select extension method. And it gave me an unexpected result.

First I created a Person Class.

Public Class Person
    Private _name As String

    Public Sub New()
        _name = "person1"
    End Sub

    Public Sub New(ByVal Name As String)
        _name = Name
    End Sub

    Public Property Name() As String
        Get
            Return _name
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _name = value
        End Set
    End Property
End Class

And what I wanted was to get a count of all the persons whose name was Test1.

So I created myself a testclass.

```vbnet Imports NUnit.Framework

<testfixture()> _ Public Class TestIlistSelect

Private _persons As List(Of Person)

&lt;SetUp()&gt; _
Public Sub Setup()
    _persons = New List(Of Person)
    _persons.Add(New Person("Test1"))
    _persons.Add(New Person("Test2"))
    _persons.Add(New Person("Test3"))
End Sub

End Class``` And the first test I did was this.

vbnet &lt;Test()&gt; _ Public Sub If_Select_Name_As_Test1_Gives_1_Element() Assert.AreEqual(1, _persons.Select(Function(x) x.Name = "Test1").Count) End Sub Result

NUnit.Framework.AssertionException: Expected: 1
But was: 3

Not good.

Ok, next attempt.

vbnet &lt;Test()&gt; _ Public Sub If_Select_Name_As_Test1_Gives_1_Element_2() Assert.AreEqual(1, (_persons.Select(Function(x) x.Name = "Test1")).Count) End Sub Same result.

Next up.

vbnet &lt;Test()&gt; _ Public Sub If_Select_Name_As_Test1_Gives_1_Element_3() Dim results = _persons.Select(Function(x) x.Name = "Test1") Assert.AreEqual(1, results.Count) End Sub And again nothing.

Time to look at what it is doing by debugging it.

I thought Select was returning an array of Persons. But it isn’t it is returning an array of booleans. Where it gives you the result of the statement.

So I actually got the following as a result.

True

False

False

Now on to the next test, just to see if I am right.

vbnet &lt;Test()&gt; _ Public Sub If_Select_Name_As_Test1_Gives_1_Element_4() Dim results = _persons.Select(Function(x) x.Name = "Test1") Dim i = 0 For Each result In results If result = True Then i += 1 End If Next Assert.AreEqual(1, i) End Sub And yes this gives me Success.

Woohoo.

But while digging through the different extension methods I also found this one.

vbnet &lt;Test()&gt; _ Public Sub If_Count_Name_As_Test1_Gives_1_Element_3() Assert.AreEqual(1, _persons.LongCount(Function(x) x.Name = "Test1")) End Sub Which gives me the result I want in a shorter fashion and more readable way.

All the above because I misunderstood what the Select was supposed to give me. Alex told me to use the Where method instead which gives me the result I wanted. I do not think that the Select method is very intuitive.