Sorting List in C#

Question

How to sort a List based on the item\'s integer value

The list is like

\"1\"
\"5\"
\"3\"
\"6\"
\"11\"
\"9\"
\"NUM1\"
\"NUM0\"

The r

Answer 1

Try writing a small helper class to parse and represent your tokens. For example, without too many checks:

public class NameAndNumber
{
    public NameAndNumber(string s)
    {
        OriginalString = s;
        Match match = Regex.Match(s,@"^(.*?)(\d*)$");
        Name = match.Groups[1].Value;
        int number;
        int.TryParse(match.Groups[2].Value, out number);
        Number = number; //will get default value when blank
    }

    public string OriginalString { get; private set; }
    public string Name { get; private set; }
    public int Number { get; private set; }
}

Now it becomes easy to write a comparer, or sort it manually:

var list = new List { "ABC", "1", "5", "NUM44", "3", 
                              "6", "11", "9", "NUM1", "NUM0" };

var sorted = list.Select(str => new NameAndNumber(str))
    .OrderBy(n => n.Name)
    .ThenBy(n => n.Number);

Gives the result:

1, 3, 5, 6, 9, 11, ABC, NUM0, NUM1, NUM44