C# Alphabetize String

Implement a string alphabetize method to sort the letters in strings.

Alphabetize string. An individual string can be alphabetized. This rearranges the letters so they are sorted A to Z. These strings with sorted letters can be used as lookup keys. Here we see a method that alphabetizes strings in the C# programming language.Sort Strings

To start, we see the Alphabetize method, which receives a C# string and returns a sorted copy of that string. Please recall that strings are immutable. This means we cannot sort the letters in-place.

Method: The method converts the string to a char array using ToCharArray, which you can modify in-place. It uses the static Array.Sort method.

And: The final line in the method creates a new string from the char array it modified, and returns it.

Char Array Array.Sort

Char array: With char arrays, you can change a character in a char array all by itself, which you cannot do with a string. This is much faster.

ToCharArray

C# program that alphabetizes strings using System; class Program { static void Main() { Console.WriteLine(StringTools.Alphabetize("sam")); Console.WriteLine(StringTools.Alphabetize("spot")); Console.WriteLine(StringTools.Alphabetize("cat")); } } public static class StringTools { /// <summary> /// Alphabetize the characters in the string. /// </summary> public static string Alphabetize(string s) { // 1. // Convert to char array. char[] a = s.ToCharArray(); // 2. // Sort letters. Array.Sort(a); // 3. // Return modified string. return new string(a); } } Output ams opst act

Already alphabetical. Some strings are already in alphabetical order. We can avoid sorting these strings. This enhances performance and results in simpler code. This method determines if the characters in a string are alphabetized.

Caution: This method compares the numeric values of chars, so it won't work right on uppercase letters.

Char

IsAlpha: This method contains a foreach iterative statement that loops through each character in the string.

And: If it finds a character that is lower in its ordinal value than the previous character, it returns false.

Also: It returns early when it finds an incorrect (non-alphabetized) character. In this situation, no further processing is needed.

Foreach

C# program that checks alphabetical strings public static class StringTools { /// <summary> /// Alphabetize string, checking to see if it is already alphabetized. /// </summary> public static string AlphabetizeCheck(string s) { if (IsAlpha(s)) { return s; } else { // TODO: Sort and return the new string. return ""; } } /// <summary> /// See if letters in string are in numeric ascending order. /// </summary> public static bool IsAlpha(string s) { char prev = char.MinValue; foreach (char c in s) { if (c < prev) { return false; } prev = c; } return true; } }

Summary. We saw approaches for alphabetizing strings. It is typically a bad idea to use nested for-loops—that is often a slower solution. This code may not work on mixed-case strings. You can remedy this by using ToLower in Alphabetize.ToLower

The Dev Codes

.Net

.NET Array Dictionary List String 2D Async DataTable Dates DateTime Enum File For Foreach Format IEnumerable If IndexOf Lambda LINQ Parse Path Process Property Regex Replace Sort Split Static StringBuilder Substring Switch Tuple

Java

Core Array ArrayList HashMap String 2D Cast Character Console Deque Duplicates File For Format HashSet If IndexOf Lambda Math ParseInt Process Random Regex Replace Sort Split StringBuilder Substring Switch Vector While

TheDeveloperBlog.com

C# Alphabetize String

Related Links:

.Net

Java

Related Links