Question

I need to sort a List based on the difference between the strings in the list and a target string.

What’s the best way of implementing this kind of sorting algorithm?

I don’t care too much about performance but the collection could potentially become big (let’s say half a million tops).

Any Help Appreciated!

Answer 1

I would recommend calculating the Levenshtein distance and then simply ordering by the integer result. (Magic code)

public void Example() {     string target = 'target';      List<string> myStings = new List<string>();      myStings.Add('this');     myStings.Add('that');      myStrings = myStrings.OrderBy(each => Levenshtein(each, target)).ToList(); }  public int Levenshtein(string stringA, string stringB) {     // Magic goes here     return 0; } 

Without OrderBy for the old skool 2.0 guys?

List<string> myStrings; myStrings.Sort(LevenshteinCompare); ...  public class LevenshteinCompare: IComparer<string> {     public int Compare(string x, string y)     {         // Magic goes here     } }