Sort string list with dates in C#

Question

I have a List with dates.
My list is:

{\"01/01/2013\",\"10/01/2013\",\"20/01/2013\"}

I want to sort the list

Answer 1

With linq:

var list = new List {"01/01/2013", "10/01/2013", "20/01/2013"};
var orderedList = list.OrderByDescending(x => DateTime.Parse(x)).ToList();

UPDATE (according questions in comments):

You can treat invalid dates like this (invalid date is there treated as default(DateTime)):

var list = new List { "01/01/2013", "10/01/2013", "N/A" , "20/01/2013"  };
var orderedList2 = list.OrderByDescending(x =>
            {
                DateTime dt;
                DateTime.TryParse(x, out dt);
                return dt;
            });

Or if you want to have invalid datetime as first item in the list:

var orderedList3 = list.OrderByDescending(x =>
            {
                DateTime dt;
                if (!DateTime.TryParse(x, out dt)) return DateTime.MaxValue;
                return dt;
            }); 

You can also filter the invalid dates out:

var filteredList = list.Where(x =>
            {
                DateTime dt;
                return DateTime.TryParse(x, out dt);
            }).Select(DateTime.Parse).OrderByDescending(x => x);

Or even better:

var filteredList = list.Select(x =>
        {
            DateTime dt;
            return new {valid = DateTime.TryParse(x, out dt), date = dt};
        }).Where(x => x.valid).Select(x => x.date).OrderByDescending(x => x);