Sorting an IList in C#

Question

So I came across an interesting problem today. We have a WCF web service that returns an IList. Not really a big deal until I wanted to sort it.

Turns out the IList

Answer 1

using System.Linq;

var yourList = SomeDAO.GetRandomThings();
yourList.ToList().Sort( (thing, randomThing) => thing.CompareThisProperty.CompareTo( randomThing.CompareThisProperty ) );

That's pretty !ghetto.

Answer 2

This looks MUCH MORE SIMPLE if you ask me. This works PERFECTLY for me.

You could use Cast() to change it to IList then use OrderBy():

    var ordered = theIList.Cast<T>().OrderBy(e => e);

WHERE T is the type eg. Model.Employee or Plugin.ContactService.Shared.Contact

Then you can use a for loop and its DONE.

  ObservableCollection<Plugin.ContactService.Shared.Contact> ContactItems= new ObservableCollection<Contact>();

    foreach (var item in ordered)
    {
       ContactItems.Add(item);
    }

Answer 3

Convert your IList into List<T> or some other generic collection and then you can easily query/sort it using System.Linq namespace (it will supply bunch of extension methods)

Answer 4

You're going to have to do something like that i think (convert it into a more concrete type).

Maybe take it into a List of T rather than ArrayList, so that you get type safety and more options for how you implement the comparer.

Answer 5

Found a good post on this and thought I'd share. Check it out HERE

Basically.

You can create the following class and IComparer Classes

public class Widget {
    public string Name = string.Empty;
    public int Size = 0;

    public Widget(string name, int size) {
    this.Name = name;
    this.Size = size;
}
}

public class WidgetNameSorter : IComparer<Widget> {
    public int Compare(Widget x, Widget y) {
        return x.Name.CompareTo(y.Name);
}
}

public class WidgetSizeSorter : IComparer<Widget> {
    public int Compare(Widget x, Widget y) {
    return x.Size.CompareTo(y.Size);
}
}

Then If you have an IList, you can sort it like this.

List<Widget> widgets = new List<Widget>();
widgets.Add(new Widget("Zeta", 6));
widgets.Add(new Widget("Beta", 3));
widgets.Add(new Widget("Alpha", 9));

widgets.Sort(new WidgetNameSorter());
widgets.Sort(new WidgetSizeSorter());

But Checkout this site for more information... Check it out HERE

Answer 6

Is this a valid solution?

        IList<string> ilist = new List<string>();
        ilist.Add("B");
        ilist.Add("A");
        ilist.Add("C");

        Console.WriteLine("IList");
        foreach (string val in ilist)
            Console.WriteLine(val);
        Console.WriteLine();

        List<string> list = (List<string>)ilist;
        list.Sort();
        Console.WriteLine("List");
        foreach (string val in list)
            Console.WriteLine(val);
        Console.WriteLine();

        list = null;

        Console.WriteLine("IList again");
        foreach (string val in ilist)
            Console.WriteLine(val);
        Console.WriteLine();

The result was: IList B A C

List A B C

IList again A B C