In C#, what is the best way to sort a list of objects by a string property and get correct order?

Question

I have a list of \"Issue\" objects and i want to sort them by the \"Priority\" field.

The issue is that \"Priority\" is a string name like \"HIGH\", \"MEDIUM\" so i

Answer 1

The easiest way would probably be like:

private static int MapPriority(string priority)
{
  switch(priority.ToUpperInvariant())//skip the case bit if safe
  {
    case "HIGH":
      return 1;
    case "MEDIUM":
      return 2;
    case "LOW":
      return 3;
    default:
      return 4;
  }
}

var sorted = someCollection.OrderBy(i => MapPriority(i.PriorityProperty));

With a db-backed form you'll need a function in the DB you can call into. This is in-memory only.

With lots of possible values, I'd base it on a dictionary rather than hand-code. I'd hand-code for three as in this case though (unless the values used could change, a further complication making dictionary-based approaches the only way).

If sorting a serious number of such items, or calling this a lot, I'd go with an IComparer implementation, or have the item itself implement IComparable.