How to sort depended objects by dependency

Question

I have a collection:

List> dependencyHierarchy;

The first item in pair is some object (item) and the

Answer 1

I would make this easier on myself by storing the dependencies of an Item within the Item itself:

public class Item
{
    private List m_Dependencies = new List();

    protected AddDependency(Item _item) { m_Dependencies.Add(_item); }

    public Item()
    {
    }; // eo ctor

    public List Dependencies {get{return(m_Dependencies);};}
} // eo class Item

Then, given this you can implement a custom Sort delegate for List that sorts based on whether the given Item is contained within the other's list of dependencies:

int CompareItem(Item _1, Item _2)
{
    if(_2.Dependencies.Contains(_1))
        return(-1);
    else if(_1.Dependencies.Contains(_2))
        return(1);
    else
        return(0);
}