Question

If I have a 2D array of strings like so;

{
    {"12", "Animal", "Cat"}
    {"20", "Animal", "Dog"}
    {"6", "Vegetable", "Carrot"}
    {"5", "Mineral", "Iron"}
}

How can I use LINQ to select the data and orderby, say the 2nd ‘column’? (C# linq preferably)

Answer 1

Something like:

var sorted = array.OrderBy(x => x[1])
                  .ToArray(); // Or ToList, or nothing...

It’s not clear what you mean by “select the data”. Personally I’d try to create a more strongly-typed data model, rather than just having an array of strings for each row. You can do that easily enough with LINQ as well, of course:

var sorted = array.Select(row => new Item {
                             Id = int.Parse(row[0]),
                             Category = row[1],
                             Name = row[2]
                          });
                  .OrderBy(x => x.Category)
                  .ToArray();

EDIT: For a query expression version of the first:

var sorted = (from x in array
              orderby x[1]
              select x).ToArray();

As you can see, it’s more cluttered than using the extension methods directly. It’s worth being comfortable with both forms, so you can pick the simplest one in any given situation.