Sorting a Dictionary in place with respect to keys

Question

I have a dictionary in C# like

Dictionary

and I want to sort that dictionary in place with respect to keys (a f

Answer 1

Due to this answers high search placing I thought the LINQ OrderBy solution is worth showing:

class Person
{
    public Person(string firstname, string lastname)
    {
        FirstName = firstname;
        LastName = lastname;
    }
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Dictionary People = new Dictionary();

    People.Add(new Person("John", "Doe"), 1);
    People.Add(new Person("Mary", "Poe"), 2);
    People.Add(new Person("Richard", "Roe"), 3);
    People.Add(new Person("Anne", "Roe"), 4);
    People.Add(new Person("Mark", "Moe"), 5);
    People.Add(new Person("Larry", "Loe"), 6);
    People.Add(new Person("Jane", "Doe"), 7);

    foreach (KeyValuePair person in People.OrderBy(i => i.Key.LastName))
    {
        Debug.WriteLine(person.Key.LastName + ", " + person.Key.FirstName + " - Id: " + person.Value.ToString());
    }
}

Output:

Doe, John - Id: 1
Doe, Jane - Id: 7
Loe, Larry - Id: 6
Moe, Mark - Id: 5
Poe, Mary - Id: 2
Roe, Richard - Id: 3
Roe, Anne - Id: 4

In this example it would make sense to also use ThenBy for first names:

foreach (KeyValuePair person in People.OrderBy(i => i.Key.LastName).ThenBy(i => i.Key.FirstName))

Then the output is:

Doe, Jane - Id: 7
Doe, John - Id: 1
Loe, Larry - Id: 6
Moe, Mark - Id: 5
Poe, Mary - Id: 2
Roe, Anne - Id: 4
Roe, Richard - Id: 3

LINQ also has the OrderByDescending and ThenByDescending for those that need it.