Question

I have List like this

    List<string> items = new List<string>();
    items.Add("-");
    items.Add(".");
    items.Add("a-");
    items.Add("a.");
    items.Add("a-a");
    items.Add("a.a");

    items.Sort();

    string output = string.Empty;
    foreach (string s in items)
    {
        output += s + Environment.NewLine;
    }

MessageBox.Show(output);

The output is coming back as

-
.
a-
a.
a.a
a-a

where as I am expecting the results as

-
.
a-
a.
a-a
a.a

Any idea why “a-a” is not coming before “a.a” where as “a-” comes before “a.”

Answer 1

If you want your string sort to be based on the actual byte value as opposed to the rules defined by the current culture you can sort by Ordinal:

items.Sort(StringComparer.Ordinal);

This will make the results consistent across all cultures (but it will produce unintuitive sortings of “14” coming before “9” which may or may not be what you’re looking for).