Question

I have an Excel 97-2003 .xls spreadsheet converted from .dbf using C#-4.0 and Excel.Interop. The data is sorted by date according to column D.

http://www.tiikoni.com/tis/view/?id=af4cf69

Now I would need to sort the selected range (shown in the image), by column G so that blank cells get to be on the bottom of the selected range.

The image shows it correctly, but just because the data retrieved from the input source was entered in the proper order. If data wouldn’t have been entered in the right order, then blank cells might not be at the bottom in column G from the start.

This is what I have, to do that sorting for each D date range (a day).

    Range incasariSortRange;
    Range sRange;
    int startDateRowIndex = 6; // index of row where a D date starts
    int endDateRowIndex = 6; // index of row where the same D date ends

    public void selectGroupRange()
    {
        for (int r = startDateRowIndex; r < rowIndex; r++)
        {
            if (worksheet.Cells[endDateRowIndex, 4].Value == worksheet.Cells[r, 4].Value)
            {
                endDateRowIndex = r;
            }
            else
            {
                incasariSortRange = worksheet.get_Range("B" + startDateRowIndex, "H" + endDateRowIndex);
                sRange = incasariSortRange.get_Range("G" + startDateRowIndex, "G" + endDateRowIndex);

                // Sort the first 'D' date range's row by wether the cells in column 'G' 
                //of that range have any values (to be the first ones) or not (to be the last ones).
                incasariSortRange.Sort(sRange, XlSortOrder.xlAscending,
                    Type.Missing, Type.Missing, XlSortOrder.xlAscending,
                    Type.Missing, XlSortOrder.xlAscending, XlYesNoGuess.xlNo, Type.Missing,
                    Type.Missing, XlSortOrientation.xlSortColumns, XlSortMethod.xlPinYin, XlSortDataOption.xlSortNormal,
                    XlSortDataOption.xlSortNormal, XlSortDataOption.xlSortNormal);

                // Set the start and end (date) row indexes to the same so the incasariSortRange will be one row only.
                startDateRowIndex = r; // set the start to a new date
                endDateRowIndex = r; // set the end to the same new date
            }
        }
    }

‘rowIndex’ is the index number of the row after the last row with data in the spreadsheet.

But as shown here, it sorts the rows so that blank cells in column G get to the top of the selected range.

http://www.tiikoni.com/tis/view/?id=ea48320

My second question would be, after doing this sorting, how can I select from the selected range only the rows where the cells in column G are not blank? -so that I can sort those again.

Thank you.

Answer 1

In the end I managed to do it like this.

A “datagroup” is a group of rows which have the same values in column(D) DATE, grouped by days. “type” is not really relevant, it is just because in my DataSet.Table[0]’s I have a column in which there are two possible values, and according to the value in the row, the row will be written in either the first or the second worksheet in the workbook.

The “Incasari” is the column which I use to sort by. Like this, Symbols, numbers, lower case letters, uppercase letters, then blank spaces or empty strings come; and that column has only symbols, numbers, lower case letters and blank spaces/ empty strings.

var sortedDataGroup = datagroup.OrderBy(row =>
{
    var wrapper = new DataRowWrapper(row, type);

    if (wrapper.Incasari != null)
        return wrapper.ContCor.ToLower();
    else
        return "A"; // Capital letters are after lower case letters
});

It might not be the best way to solve this sorting problem, but I could not find better methods.