How to Sort a List<T> by a property in the object

Suppose you have the following code, in this code, we have a Passenger class with a couple of properties that we want to sort based on.

public class Passenger
{
    public string Name { get; }
    public string LastName { get; }
    public string PassportNo { get; }
    public string Nationality { get; }

    public Passenger(string name, string lastName, string passportNo, string nationality)
    {
        this.Name = name;
        this.LastName = lastName;
        this.PassportNo = passportNo;
        this.Nationality = nationality;
    }

    public static int CompareByName(Passenger passenger1, Passenger passenger2)
    {
        return String.Compare(passenger1.Name, passenger2.Name);
    }

    public static int CompareByLastName(Passenger passenger1, Passenger passenger2)
    {
        return String.Compare(passenger1.LastName, passenger2.LastName);
    }

    public static int CompareNationality(Passenger passenger1, Passenger passenger2)
    {
        return String.Compare(passenger1.Nationality, passenger2.Nationality);
    }
}

public class TestPassengerSort
{
    Passenger p1 = new Passenger("Johon", "Floid", "A123456789", "USA");
    Passenger p2 = new Passenger("Jo", "Sina", "A987463215", "UAE");
    Passenger p3 = new Passenger("Ped", "Zoola", "A987855215", "Italy");

    public void SortThem()
    {
        Passenger[] passengers = new Passenger[] { p1, p2, p3 };
        List<Passenger> passengerList = new List<Passenger> { p1, p2, p3 };

        Array.Sort(passengers, Passenger.CompareByName);
        Array.Sort(passengers, Passenger.CompareByLastName);
        Array.Sort(passengers, Passenger.CompareNationality);

        passengerList.Sort(Passenger.CompareByName);
        passengerList.Sort(Passenger.CompareByLastName);
        passengerList.Sort(Passenger.CompareNationality);

    }
}

So you can implement your sort structure by using Composition delegate.

I made this extension method for List<T>.

The extension method takes the property you wish to sort as a parsed string and then uses the OrderBy method of the List<T>. Then it sets each index of the original list to the same index of the ordered list.

public static class ListExtensions {
    public static void SortBy<T>(this List<T> list, string property, bool reverse = false) {
        List<T> ordered = list.OrderBy(obj => obj.GetType().GetProperty(property).GetValue(obj, null)).ToList();
            
        for (int i = 0; i < list.Count; i++)
            list[i] = reverse ? ordered[list.Count - 1 - i] : ordered[i];
    }
}

If an object in the list has the property Name you sort your list testList as so:

//For normal sorting order
testList.SortBy("Name");
//For reverse sorting order
testList.SortBy("Name", true);

I would recommend that you change the name of SortBy, to something like Prefix_SortBy. To prevent potential collisions if you import another library.

I know this method works for alphabetical and numerical ordering. Its sorting capabilites may be limited yet it is very simple to operate.

If there are some major flaws or issues with this, do tell, I've been programming C# for about 3 months.

Best regards

• If you need to sort the Id that is string in Question entity

• Use Sort function and delegate to sort the Id after parsing the Id value

    class Question
    {
        public List<QuestionInfo> Questions Info{ get; set; }
    
    }

    class QuestionInfo
    {
        public string Id{ get; set; }
        public string Questions{ get; set; }
    
    }

    var questionnaire = new Question();
     questionnaire.QuestionInfo.Sort((x, y) => int.Parse(x.Id, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture) - int.Parse(y.Id, CultureInfo.CurrentCulture));

hi just to come back at the question. If you want to sort the List of this sequence "1" "10" "100" "200" "2" "20" "3" "30" "300" and get the sorted items in this form 1;2;3;10;20;30;100;200;300 you can use this:

 public class OrderingAscending : IComparer<String>
    {
        public int Compare(String x, String y)
        {
            Int32.TryParse(x, out var xtmp);
            Int32.TryParse(y, out var ytmp);

            int comparedItem = xtmp.CompareTo(ytmp);
            return comparedItem;
        }
    }

and you can use it in code behind in this form:

 IComparer<String> comparerHandle = new OrderingAscending();
 yourList.Sort(comparerHandle);