Question

I need to pull data from a text file, sort it, then save over the old data with the newly sorted data. Here is the format of the text file:

Dog

Cow

Sheep

If I read the text into an list, then call the sort method, I get this:

""
""
""
Cow
Dog
Sheep

That’s not what I want. Is there a way for .Sort() to ignore white spaces, or should I approach this problem differently?

EDIT I need the empty lines to be there when I save back to the file. The output should be

Cow 

Dog

Sheep 

Answer 1

Use Linq. Following should work:

string[] myText = File.RealAllLines("yourfile.txt");
var sortedWithoutEmptyLines = myText
     .Where(t=> !string.IsNullOrEmpty(t))
     .OrderBy(s=>s)
     .Select(i => string.Concat(i, Environment.NewLine)); //Adding extra linebreak as asked
File.WriteAllLines("yourfile.txt", sortedWithoutEmptyLines.ToArray());