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But often collections are not in an order we want. With the Sort subroutine (on arrays and lists) we order elements by their values.
We sort collections in-place. Sorting is by default in ascending order: elements go from lowest to highest. We can implement a descending order.
Array. We use System.Array.Sort on array instances. The array is of type String() and it contains five strings. When Sort is called, we can specify the type of the array parameter after Of.
Here: The array is sorted in-place. Then, we loop through the array with a For-Each loop. We print results.
Based on: .NET 4.5 VB.NET program that uses System.Array.Sort on strings Module Module1 Sub Main() ' Create an array of String() with five elements. Dim array As String() = New String() {"Egyptian", _ "Indian", _ "American", _ "Chinese", _ "Filipino"} ' Use the System.Array.Sort shared method. System.Array.Sort(Of String)(array) ' Loop through the results. Dim value As String For Each value In array Console.WriteLine(value) Next End Sub End Module Output American Chinese Egyptian Filipino Indian
Sort, Reverse. Another way to reorder an array combines the Sort and Reverse methods. Effectively, this will give you a reverse alphabetical sort on strings.
Tip: It is important to use Reverse after Sort, because Sort will always produce an alphabetical array in this context.
VB.NET program that uses Sort and Reverse methods Module Module1 Sub Main() ' Create an array of String() with five elements. Dim array As String() = New String() {"X", _ "B", _ "A", _ "Z", _ "C"} ' Use the System.Array.Sort shared method. System.Array.Sort(Of String)(array) ' Invoke the Reverse method after sorting. System.Array.Reverse(array) ' Loop through the results. Dim value As String For Each value In array Console.WriteLine(value) Next End Sub End Module Output Z X C B A
List. Sorting a List is also easy. No custom algorithms need to be implemented. Instead, you can invoke the instance Sort method on the List you created.
Info: Internally, this uses similar code to the System.Array.Sort method so performance is similar.
Next: In this program, we sort the adjectives and then print them out to the screen.
VB.NET program that uses List Sort method Module Module1 Sub Main() ' Create a list of strings. Dim list As New List(Of String) list.Add("Australian") list.Add("Mongolian") list.Add("Russian") list.Add("Austrian") list.Add("Brazilian") ' Use Sort method. list.Sort() ' Loop through the results. Dim value As String For Each value In list Console.WriteLine(value) Next End Sub End Module Output Australian Austrian Brazilian Mongolian Russian
Collections. It is also possible to sort collections such as the Dictionary. With this type, we can get the Keys and Values and then sort those collections. We can also sort a List.
Custom. It is possible to define a custom method that determines sort ordering. The default sorting methods work for many cases. But sometimes problems have additional complexity.
Alphanumeric: We sort strings alphanumerically. This treats digits in strings not as characters but part of perhaps larger numbers.
Files: We sort files by their lengths, from largest to smallest. This example uses the OrderByDescending method.
Numbers, strings: We can sort strings that have numbers within them by parsing each string into an object. Then we sort the object.
With IComparable, we can sort objects based on some part of their internal data. Often we sort objects by a property value. We implement the IComparable generic interface and CompareTo.
SortedList. Some collections keep their element sorted as you use them. The SortedList type, for example, always sorts its keys. We add keys and values to SortedList.
Add: In Add, the first argument is the key to add. The second argument is the value at that key.
Tip: The SortedList has no ways to reorder its elements. If you want to change the ordering, you must create a new collection.
VB.NET program that uses SortedList Module Module1 Sub Main() ' Create SortedList and add Strings to it. Dim sorted As SortedList(Of String, String) = New SortedList(Of String, String) sorted.Add("dog", "red") sorted.Add("cat", "black") sorted.Add("zebra", "black and white") sorted.Add("ant", "black") ' Loop over pairs in the collection. For Each pair As KeyValuePair(Of String, String) In sorted Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + "/" + pair.Value) Next End Sub End Module Output ant/black cat/black dog/red zebra/black and white
Copy. The Array.Sort method sorts in-place. So you must make a copy of the original array if you wish to keep one in that order. Here I use the Array.Copy method.
Note: The changes you make to one copy of the array are not reflected in the other. The two arrays are in separate, unconnected memory.
VB.NET program that uses Copy, Sort Module Module1 Sub Main() Dim names() As String = {"Zach", "Andrew", "David"} ' Create a copy of names array and sort it. Dim namesCopy(2) As String Array.Copy(names, namesCopy, 3) Array.Sort(namesCopy) ' Display arrays. Console.WriteLine(String.Join(",", names)) Console.WriteLine(String.Join(",", namesCopy)) End Sub End Module Output Zach,Andrew,David Andrew,David,Zach
A summary. Sorting strings can be done in several different ways. Here we sampled three of the ways you can sort strings in alphabetical order, and also reverse alphabetical order.
Typically, the sorting methods provided by .NET are sufficient. They are well-tested. They are bug-free for strings and other value types like Integers.