Question

I have this class structure:

List<myObject> myList = new List<myObject>();

myObject
{
    List<myOtherObject> myOtherList = new List<myOtherObject>();
}

myOtherObject
{
    string name;
}

What would be the best way to print all the names in myList alphabetically?

I could do this, but I suspect there is a more efficient way to achieve the same:

foreach(myObject a in myList)
{
    foreach(myOtherObject b in a.myOtherList)
    {
         newList.Add(b.name);
    }
}

//print newList alphabetically

EDIT:

I was able to change the structure so that now I only need to sort myOtherList now on the basis of its name property.

I tried doing this, but it doesn’t seem to sort:

myOtherList.OrderBy(obj=>obj.name);

Does it sort it in place, or do I need to assign it to another list?

Answer 1

using linq (method notation):

foreach (var result in myList
    .SelectMany(l => l.myOtherList)
    .OrderBy(obj => obj.Name))
{
    Console.WriteLine(result.name);
}

This flattens out the myList of myOtherList‘s into a flat list of myOtherObject‘s.