Question

I have a dictionary of String, Integer so the key is the string and the value is the integer and i want to order the keys ascending by the value of the integer. How could I achieve this?

Answer 1

You could use LINQ to sort the Dictionary by value:

Dim dictionary = New Dictionary(Of String, Integer)() 
dictionary.Add("A", 2)
dictionary.Add("B", 4)
dictionary.Add("C", 5)
dictionary.Add("D", 3)
dictionary.Add("E", 1)

Dim sorted = From pair In dictionary
             Order By pair.Value
Dim sortedDictionary = sorted.ToDictionary(Function(p) p.Key, Function(p) p.Value)

Actually it does not modify the original Dictionary but creates a new Dictionary with the new order.

But: Apart from the feasability, a Dictionary is not an IList (as an Array or List<T>). It’s purpose is to lookup a key very efficiently but not to loop all entries.

They are unordered, meaning that although you can retrieve the elements in some order with a foreach loop, that order has no special meaning, and it might change for no apparent reason.