Question

I have an example class containing two data points:

public enum Sort { First, Second, Third, Fourth }
public class MyClass
{
    public MyClass(Sort sort, string name) { 
        this.Sort = sort; 
        this.Name = name; 
    }

    public Sort Sort { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

I’m looking to sort them into groups by their Sort property, and then alphabetize those groups.

List<MyClass> list = new List<MyClass>() { 
    new MyClass(MyClass.Sort.Third, "B"), 
    new MyClass(MyClass.Sort.First, "D"),
    new MyClass(MyClass.Sort.First, "A"),
    new MyClass(MyClass.Sort.Fourth, "C"),
    new MyClass(MyClass.Sort.First, "AB"),
    new MyClass(MyClass.Sort.Second, "Z"),
};

The output would then be:
(showing Name)

A
AB
D
Z
B
C

I’ve been able to do this by using a foreach to separate the items into many smaller arrays (grouped by the enum value) but this seems very tedious – and I think there must be some LINQ solution that I don’t know about.

Answer 1

Using extension methods, first OrderBy the enum, ThenBy name.

var sorted = list.OrderBy( m => m.Sort ).ThenBy( m => m.Name );