Sorting a DropDownList? - C#, ASP.NET

Question

I\'m curious as to the best route (more looking towards simplicity, not speed or efficiency) to sort a DropDownList in C#/ASP.NET - I\'ve looked at a few recommendations b

Answer 1

        List<ListItem> li = new List<ListItem>();
        foreach (ListItem list in DropDownList1.Items)
        {
            li.Add(list);
        }
        li.Sort((x, y) => string.Compare(x.Text, y.Text));
        DropDownList1.Items.Clear();
        DropDownList1.DataSource = li;
        DropDownList1.DataTextField = "Text";
        DropDownList1.DataValueField = "Value";
        DropDownList1.DataBind();

Answer 2

I agree with the folks in sorting your data in the model before populating them to the DropDownList, so if you are populating this from a DB, it is a good thing to get them sorted already there using a simple order by clause, it will save you some cycles in the web server, and I am sure the DB will do it so much faster. If you are populating this from another data source for example, XML file, using LINQ will be a good idea, or even any variation of Array.Sort will be good.

Answer 3

Take a look at the this article from CodeProject, which rearranges the content of a dropdownlist. If you are databinding, you will need to run the sorter after the data is bound to the list.

Answer 4

You can use this JavaScript function:

function sortlist(mylist)
{
   var lb = document.getElementById(mylist);
   arrTexts = new Array();
   arrValues = new Array();
   arrOldTexts = new Array();

   for(i=0; i<lb.length; i++)
   {
      arrTexts[i] = lb.options[i].text;
      arrValues[i] = lb.options[i].value;

      arrOldTexts[i] = lb.options[i].text;
   }

   arrTexts.sort();

   for(i=0; i<lb.length; i++)
   {
      lb.options[i].text = arrTexts[i];
      for(j=0; j<lb.length; j++)
      {
         if (arrTexts[i] == arrOldTexts[j])
         {
            lb.options[i].value = arrValues[j];
            j = lb.length;
         }
      }
   }
}

Answer 5

If you get a DataTable with the data, you can create a DataView off of this and then bind the drop down list to that. Your code would look something like...

DataView dvOptions = new DataView(DataTableWithOptions);
dvOptions.Sort = "Description";

ddlOptions.DataSource = dvOptions;
ddlOptions.DataTextField = "Description";
ddlOptions.DataValueField = "Id";
ddlOptions.DataBind();

Your text field and value field options are mapped to the appropriate columnns in the data table you are receiving.

Answer 6

is better if you sort the Source before Binding it to DropDwonList. but sort DropDownList.Items like this:

    Dim Lista_Items = New List(Of ListItem)

    For Each item As ListItem In ddl.Items
        Lista_Items.Add(item)
    Next

    Lista_Items.Sort(Function(x, y) String.Compare(x.Text, y.Text))

    ddl.Items.Clear()
    ddl.Items.AddRange(Lista_Items.ToArray())

(this case i sort by a string(the item's text), it could be the suplier's name, supplier's id)

the Sort() method is for every List(of ) / List<MyType>, you can use it.