Looking for a better way to sort my List

Question

I\'m reviewing a piece of code I wrote not too long ago, and I just hate the way I handled the sorting - I\'m wondering if anyone might be able to show me a better way.

Answer 1

You could implement a custom IComparer class which uses reflection. However this would be slower.

Here's a class, which I once used:

class ListComparer : IComparer
{
    private ComparerState State = ComparerState.Init;
    public string Field {get;set;}


    public int Compare(object x, object y) 
    {
        object cx;
        object cy;

        if (State == ComparerState.Init) 
        {
            if (x.GetType().GetProperty(pField) == null)
                State = ComparerState.Field;
            else
                State = ComparerState.Property;
        }

        if (State == ComparerState.Property) 
        {
            cx = x.GetType().GetProperty(Field).GetValue(x,null);
            cy = y.GetType().GetProperty(Field).GetValue(y,null);
        }
        else 
        {
            cx = x.GetType().GetField(Field).GetValue(x);
            cy = y.GetType().GetField(Field).GetValue(y);
        }


        if (cx == null) 
            if (cy == null)
                return 0;
            else 
                return -1;
        else if (cy == null)
            return 1;

        return ((IComparable) cx).CompareTo((IComparable) cy);

    }

    private enum ComparerState 
    {
        Init,
        Field,
        Property
    }
}

Then use it like this:

var comparer = new ListComparer() { 
    Field= frm.SelectedSortColumn.BaseColumn.ToString() };
if (frm.SortAscending)
    pf.Holding = pf.Holding.OrderBy(h=>h.Product, comparer).ToList();
else
    pf.Holding = pf.Holding.OrderByDescending(h=>h.Product, comparer).ToList();