This paper presents the first part of a general study of the structure of nine preference-based choice functions introduced by Barrett et al.2 More precisely, we show that, as for crisp total pre-orders, first and last alternatives exist in a finite set of alternatives equipped with a strongly complete fuzzy pre-order. We use that result to characterize each of those crisp choice functions for crisp total pre-orders and strongly complete fuzzy pre-orders. We study, by means of those characterizations, the consistency of those preference-based choice functions when preferences are strongly complete fuzzy pre-orders (thereby crisp total pre-orders), that is, we check if each choice function satisfies or violates each of six consistency conditions introduced by Sen.11