Custom Linq Ordering

Question

I have over a thousand folders, each folder contains one or more files with the following names:

Unordered:

Alison.ext
Heather.ext
Molly.ext
Paula.ext
Sam.ext         


        

Answer 1

Here's a method that produces keys for ordering

public int OrderKey(string fileName)
{
  char first = fileName[0];
  int result =
     first  == 'M' ? 1 :
     first  == 'S' ? 2 :
     first  == 'H' ? 3 :
     first  == 'A' ? 4 :
     first  == 'P' ? 5 :
     6;
  return result;
}

Here's how to call it:

List ordered = Files.OrderBy(f => OrderKey(f.FileName)).ToList();