CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#stringsorting
quotidian
quotidian

Reputation: 137

Sort a string array alphabetically ignoring numbers and symbols

I'm trying to sort a string array that contains numbers just by the letters so for example:

Original array = {"09Bananas", "Pears2", "Mangoes39Bad", "100Apples", "Mangoes38Good"}

Should become:

Sorted array = {"100Apples", "09Bananas", "Mangoes39Bad", "Mangoes38Good", "Pears2"}

However when I try to use Array.sort(original) it would come out like this:

{"09Bananas", "100Apples", "Mangoes38Good", "Mangoes39Bad", "Pears2"}

Is there an overload of Array.sort that would make it ignore numbers?

Thanks

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2560

Answers (2)

Tim Schmelter
Tim Schmelter

Reputation: 460108

You could write a method that returns the string without digits and use that with Enumerable.OrderBy:

private string TextOnly(String input)
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    foreach (Char c in input)
        if (!Char.IsDigit(c))
            sb.Append(c);

    return sb.ToString();
}

use it:

var original = new[] { "09Bananas", "Pears2", "Mangoes39Bad", "100Apples", "Mangoes38Good" };
var ordered = original.OrderBy(s => TextOnly(s));
// if you need it as: String[] orderedArray = ordered.ToArray();

To order the original array instead, you can use Array<T>.Sort as @dasblinkenlight has mentioned:

Array.Sort<String>(original, (s1, s2) => TextOnly(s1).CompareTo(TextOnly(s2)));

Upvotes: 3

Sergey Kalinichenko
Sergey Kalinichenko

Reputation: 726569

Use Array.Sort<T>(T[],IComparer<T>) overload, and skip digits before comparing strings.

var array = new[] {
    "09Bananas", "Pears2", "Mangoes39Bad", "100Apples", "Mangoes38Good"
};
Array.Sort(array, (a,b) => {
    a = new string(a.Where(char.IsLetter).ToArray());
    b = new string(b.Where(char.IsLetter).ToArray());
    return a.CompareTo(b);
});
Console.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", array));

The LINQ expression a.Where(char.IsLetter).ToArray() converts a string to an array of individual letters.

Upvotes: 6

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