Question

I have a two-column ListView linked to a Datapager. The ListView lists all files of a particular type in a particular directory, so the data source is an ArrayList of type FileInfo. Consequently, I had to create a Comparer class to use in the ArrayList.Sort method.

FileInfoComparer.vb:

Imports System.IO

Friend Class FileInfoDateComparer
 Implements IComparer

 Public Overridable Overloads Function Compare(ByVal x As Object, ByVal y As Object) As Integer Implements System.Collections.IComparer.Compare
  Dim oX As FileInfo = CType(x, FileInfo)
  Dim oY As FileInfo = CType(y, FileInfo)
  Return oX.LastWriteTime.CompareTo(oY.LastWriteTime)
 End Function
End Class

Friend Class FileInfoNameComparer
 Implements IComparer

 Public Overridable Overloads Function Compare(ByVal x As Object, ByVal y As Object) As Integer Implements System.Collections.IComparer.Compare
  Dim oX As FileInfo = CType(x, FileInfo)
  Dim oY As FileInfo = CType(y, FileInfo)
  Return oX.Name.CompareTo(oY.Name)
 End Function
End Class

GenerateSortedArray sub:

 Private Sub GenerateSortedArray(ByVal SortColumn As String, ByVal SortDirection As String)
  Dim dirInfo As New DirectoryInfo(Server.MapPath(AppSettings.Item("ContentDir")))
  Dim FileArrayList As New ArrayList(dirInfo.GetFiles("*.msg", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly))

  With FileArrayList
   .TrimToSize()
   Select Case SortColumn
    Case "Name"
     .Sort(New FileInfoNameComparer)
    Case Else
     .Sort(New FileInfoDateComparer)
   End Select
  End With

ListView_Sorting:

  Session("SortColumn") = e.SortExpression
  Session("SortDirection") = e.SortDirection

  Call GenerateSortedArray(e.SortExpression, DBNull.Value.ToString)

All this works well, however, I don’t know how to reverse the sort. As you can see from the code, I’ve determined the Sort Direction, but I don’t know how to use it to reverse the sort.

Any thoughts?

Answer 1

I have usually done something like this:

Friend Class FileInfoDateComparer
 Implements IComparer

    Private _sortOrder As System.Windows.Forms.SortOrder

    Public Sub New(ByVal sortOrder As System.Windows.Forms.SortOrder)
        _sortOrder = sortOrder
    End Sub

    Public Overridable Overloads Function Compare(ByVal x As Object, ByVal y As Object) As Integer Implements System.Collections.IComparer.Compare
       Dim oX As FileInfo = CType(x, FileInfo)
       Dim oY As FileInfo = CType(y, FileInfo)
       Dim result As Integer = oX.LastWriteTime.CompareTo(oY.LastWriteTime)
       If _sortOrder = System.Windows.Forms.SortOrder.Descending Then
           ' we want the reverse sort order, so we "reverse" the result '
           result = result * -1
       End If
       Return result
 End Function
End Class

If you don’t want to use the System.Windows.Forms.SortOrder, you can roll your own SortOrder enum. I usually prefer enums over booleans since you will get a clear statement in your code what the value means. Compare these two:

Dim comparer As New FileInfoDateComparer(True)
Dim comparer As New FileInfoDateComparer(SortOrder.Descending)