How do I sort a collection?

Question

Does anyone know how to sort a collection in VBA?

Answer 1

Collection is a rather wrong object for sorting.

The very point of a collection is to provide very fast access to a certain element identified by a key. How the items are stored internally should be irrelevant.

You might want to consider using arrays instead of collections if you actually need sorting.

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Other than that, yes, you can sort items in a collection.
You need to take any sorting algorithm available on the Internet (you can google inplementations in basically any language) and make a minor change where a swap occurs (other changes are unnecessary as vba collections, like arrays, can be accessed with indices). To swap two items in a collection, you need to remove them both from the collection and insert them back at the right positions (using the third or the forth parameter of the Add method).

Answer 2

This is a VBA implementation of the QuickSort algorithm, which is often a better alternative to MergeSort:

Public Sub QuickSortSortableObjects(colSortable As collection, Optional bSortAscending As Boolean = True, Optional iLow1, Optional iHigh1)
    Dim obj1 As Object
    Dim obj2 As Object
    Dim clsSortable As ISortableObject, clsSortable2 As ISortableObject
    Dim iLow2 As Long, iHigh2 As Long
    Dim vKey As Variant
    On Error GoTo PtrExit

    'If not provided, sort the entire collection
    If IsMissing(iLow1) Then iLow1 = 1
    If IsMissing(iHigh1) Then iHigh1 = colSortable.Count

    'Set new extremes to old extremes
    iLow2 = iLow1
    iHigh2 = iHigh1

    'Get the item in middle of new extremes
    Set clsSortable = colSortable.Item((iLow1 + iHigh1) \ 2)
    vKey = clsSortable.vSortKey

    'Loop for all the items in the collection between the extremes
    Do While iLow2 < iHigh2

        If bSortAscending Then
            'Find the first item that is greater than the mid-Contract item
            Set clsSortable = colSortable.Item(iLow2)
            Do While clsSortable.vSortKey < vKey And iLow2 < iHigh1
                iLow2 = iLow2 + 1
                Set clsSortable = colSortable.Item(iLow2)
            Loop

            'Find the last item that is less than the mid-Contract item
            Set clsSortable2 = colSortable.Item(iHigh2)
            Do While clsSortable2.vSortKey > vKey And iHigh2 > iLow1
                iHigh2 = iHigh2 - 1
                Set clsSortable2 = colSortable.Item(iHigh2)
            Loop
        Else
            'Find the first item that is less than the mid-Contract item
            Set clsSortable = colSortable.Item(iLow2)
            Do While clsSortable.vSortKey > vKey And iLow2 < iHigh1
                iLow2 = iLow2 + 1
                Set clsSortable = colSortable.Item(iLow2)
            Loop

            'Find the last item that is greater than the mid-Contract item
            Set clsSortable2 = colSortable.Item(iHigh2)
            Do While clsSortable2.vSortKey < vKey And iHigh2 > iLow1
                iHigh2 = iHigh2 - 1
                Set clsSortable2 = colSortable.Item(iHigh2)
            Loop
        End If

        'If the two items are in the wrong order, swap the rows
        If iLow2 < iHigh2 And clsSortable.vSortKey <> clsSortable2.vSortKey Then
            Set obj1 = colSortable.Item(iLow2)
            Set obj2 = colSortable.Item(iHigh2)
            colSortable.Remove iHigh2
            If iHigh2 <= colSortable.Count Then _
                colSortable.Add obj1, Before:=iHigh2 Else colSortable.Add obj1
            colSortable.Remove iLow2
            If iLow2 <= colSortable.Count Then _
                colSortable.Add obj2, Before:=iLow2 Else colSortable.Add obj2
        End If

        'If the Contracters are not together, advance to the next item
        If iLow2 <= iHigh2 Then
            iLow2 = iLow2 + 1
            iHigh2 = iHigh2 - 1
        End If
    Loop

    'Recurse to sort the lower half of the extremes
    If iHigh2 > iLow1 Then QuickSortSortableObjects colSortable, bSortAscending, iLow1, iHigh2

    'Recurse to sort the upper half of the extremes
    If iLow2 < iHigh1 Then QuickSortSortableObjects colSortable, bSortAscending, iLow2, iHigh1

PtrExit:
End Sub

The objects stored in the collection must implement the ISortableObject interface, which must be defined in your VBA project. To do that, add a class module called ISortableObject with the following code:

Public Property Get vSortKey() As Variant
End Property

Answer 3

This is my implementation of BubbleSort:

Public Function BubbleSort(ByRef colInput As Collection, _
                                    Optional asc = True) As Collection

    Dim temp                    As Variant
    Dim counterA                As Long
    Dim counterB                As Long

    For counterA = 1 To colInput.Count - 1
        For counterB = counterA + 1 To colInput.Count
            Select Case asc
            Case True:
                If colInput(counterA) > colInput(counterB) Then
                    temp = colInput(counterB)
                    colInput.Remove counterB
                    colInput.Add temp, temp, counterA
                End If

            Case False:
                If colInput(counterA) < colInput(counterB) Then
                    temp = colInput(counterB)
                    colInput.Remove counterB
                    colInput.Add temp, temp, counterA
                End If
            End Select
        Next counterB
    Next counterA

    Set BubbleSort = colInput

End Function

Public Sub TestMe()

    Dim myCollection    As New Collection
    Dim element         As Variant

    myCollection.Add "2342"
    myCollection.Add "vityata"
    myCollection.Add "na"
    myCollection.Add "baba"
    myCollection.Add "ti"
    myCollection.Add "hvarchiloto"
    myCollection.Add "stackoveflow"
    myCollection.Add "beta"
    myCollection.Add "zuzana"
    myCollection.Add "zuzan"
    myCollection.Add "2z"
    myCollection.Add "alpha"

    Set myCollection = BubbleSort(myCollection)

    For Each element In myCollection
        Debug.Print element
    Next element

    Debug.Print "--------------------"

    Set myCollection = BubbleSort(myCollection, False)

    For Each element In myCollection
        Debug.Print element
    Next element

End Sub

It takes the collection by reference, thus it can easily return it as a function and it has an optional parameter for Ascending and Descending sorting. The sorting returns this in the immediate window:

2342
2z
alpha
baba
beta
hvarchiloto
na
stackoveflow
ti
vityata
zuzan
zuzana
--------------------
zuzana
zuzan
vityata
ti
stackoveflow
na
hvarchiloto
beta
baba
alpha
2z
2342