Sort list of string arrays c#

Question

I have a list of string arrays, where the arrays are formatted as [Animal, Breed, Name]:

{ [\"Dog\", \"Golden Retriever\", \"Rex\"],
  [\"Cat\", \"Tabby\", \         


        

Answer 1

You can do:

var newList = list.OrderBy(r => r[0])
                  .ThenBy(r => r[1])
                  .ThenBy(r => r[2])
                  .ToList();

This will assume that your List will have an element of string array with a length of at least 3 items. This will first sort the List based on First item of the array, Animal, Then Bread and then Name.

If your List is defined as:

List list = new List { new [] {"Dog", "Golden Retriever", "Rex"},
                                           new [] { "Cat", "Tabby", "Boblawblah"},
                                           new [] {"Fish", "Clown", "Nemo"},
                                           new [] {"Dog", "Pug", "Daisy"},
                                           new [] {"Cat", "Siemese", "Wednesday"},
                                           new [] {"Fish", "Gold", "Alaska"}
                                            };

A better way to approach that problem would be to have custom class, with Type, Bread and Name as property and then use that instead of string[]

You can define your own class:

public class Animal
{
    public string Type { get; set; }
    public string Bread { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public Animal(string Type, string Bread, string Name)
    {
        this.Type = Type;
        this.Bread = Bread;
        this.Name = Name;
    }
}

and then define your List like:

List animalList = new List
{
    new Animal("Dog", "Golden Retriever", "Rex"),
    new Animal("Cat", "Tabby", "Boblawblah"),
    new Animal("Fish", "Clown", "Nemo"),
    new Animal("Dog", "Pug", "Daisy"),
    new Animal("Cat", "Siemese", "Wednesday"),
    new Animal("Fish", "Gold", "Alaska"),
};

Later you can get the sorted list like:

List sortedList = animalList
                            .OrderBy(r => r.Type)
                            .ThenBy(r => r.Bread)
                            .ToList();

If you want, you can implement your own custom sorting, see: How to use the IComparable and IComparer interfaces in Visual C#