Question

I would like to know how can i sort items of a string[] according to a specific string position. For instance i want to sort the following array by the substring ” – “

Input: {xx – c, xxxxx – b, yyy – a, mlllll – d}

Expected output: {yyy – a, xxxxx – b, xx – c, mlllll – d}

What i have so far is the following:

public string[] SortByStringPos(string[] arr, string str, bool ascending)
{
    if (ascending)
    {
        var result = from s in arr
                     where s.Length >= s.IndexOf(str)
                     orderby s[s.IndexOf(str)] ascending
                     select s;

        return result.ToArray();
    }
    else
    {
        var result = from s in arr
                     where s.Length >= s.IndexOf(str)
                     orderby s[s.IndexOf(str)] descending
                     select s;

        return result.ToArray();
    }
}

Can someone drop me a hint…?

Answer 1

For a better performance and design, I recommend you use:

    public void SortByStringPos(string[] arr, string str, bool ascending)
    {
        Array.Sort(arr, new MyStrComparer("-", ascending));
    }

    class MyStrComparer : Comparer<string>
    {
        string delimiter;
        bool isAscending;

        public MyStrComparer(string aStr, bool ascending)
        {
            delimiter = aStr;
            isAscending = ascending;
        }

        public override int Compare(string x, string y)
        {
            var r = GetMySubstring(x).CompareTo(GetMySubstring(y));
            return isAscending ? r : -r;
        }

        string GetMySubstring(string str)
        {
            return str.IndexOf(delimiter) != -1 ? str.Substring(str.LastIndexOf(delimiter)) : string.Empty;
        }

    }

You can also delete the SortByStringPos method and call Array.Sort(arr, new MyStrComparer("-", ascending)); from anywhere in your code.