Question

I need to sort an array containing a list of words and search the same using binarysearch. For certain reasons, the word-list must always be sorted using the sorting-rules of ‘en-US’ i.e. American Regional Settings. The code will run under various international Operating Systems and of course, this will mean that the word-list will be sorted differently according to the local Regional Settings in use. One problem could arise on a computer/device running with Lithuanian Regional Settings. Why? Because the letter ‘Y‘ in most languages is sorted like X-Y-Z while in Lithuanian, the sort order is I-Y-J. This behavior would create havoc to my program.

On a desktop-PC, I could change momentarily the Regional Settings into American English by using:

Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(‘en-US’)

However, since I am developing for Windows Mobile (CF.NET), this piece of code is not possible to implement.

I found some hacks which could let me change the Regional Settings on the device programmatically but they are not ‘official’ and considered risky so I prefer avoiding these.

So my question is: how can I force Array.Sort and Array.BinarySearch to use CultureInfo = ‘en-US’ while sorting and searching regardless of the Regional Settings set on the device?

I believe I could use:

Public Shared Function BinarySearch(Of T) ( _     array As T(), _     value As T, _     comparer As IComparer(Of T) _ ) As Integer 

and implement Comparer to take into consideration CultureInfo (and set it to ‘en-US’) but I don’t know how to do that despite trying hard. If anyone could post some sample-code in VB.Net or C# or an explanation of how to do it, I would be very grateful.

If you are aware of any alternative solution which works in CF.Net, then, of course, I am all ears.

Thanks.

EDIT:

I will consider Twanfosson’s answer as the accepted solution since my question clearly stated that I wanted to maintain an association with the English language.

However, in means of flexibility, I believe Guffa’s answer is the best one. Why? Let’s use another example: In German, the letter Ö is sorted Ö-X-Z while in Swedish and Finnish, the order is X-Z-Ö. In Estonian the sort order is Z-Ö-X. Complicated, isn’t it? Guffa’s solution will let me force Swedish sorting-order (changing CultureInfo) on a device running under German Regional settings. Using Comparer.DefaultInvariant with its association to English wouldn’t help in this case, probably the letter Ö would end up with O. Therefore my vote will go to Guffa.

Answer 1

Is it not possible to use the Invariant culture?

InvariantCulture retrieves an instance of the invariant culture. It is associated with the English language but not with any country/region.

Using the invariant culture would make this trivial.

Array.Sort( myArray, Comparer.DefaultInvariant );  Array.BinarySearch( myArray, myString, Comparer.DefaultInvariant );