How to Sort a List by a property in the object

Question

I have a class called Order which has properties such as OrderId, OrderDate, Quantity, and Total. I have a l

Answer 1

A Classical Object Oriented Solution

First I must genuflect to the awesomeness of LINQ.... Now that we've got that out of the way

A variation on JimmyHoffa answer. With generics the CompareTo parameter becomes type safe.

public class Order : IComparable {

    public int CompareTo( Order that ) {
        if ( that == null ) return 1;
        if ( this.OrderDate > that.OrderDate) return 1;
        if ( this.OrderDate < that.OrderDate) return -1;
        return 0;
    }
}

// in the client code
// assume myOrders is a populated List
myOrders.Sort(); 

This default sortability is re-usable of course. That is each client does not have to redundantly re-write the sorting logic. Swapping the "1" and "-1" (or the logic operators, your choice) reverses the sort order.