How to fix the following code so that it is ordered?

Question

I am creating an application with MVC 4. The code requires that it goes and gets data for individuals for each month. I have written the code so that it does that. But the month is not ordered. The final results shows the months are all over the place. I want the months in its proper order January, February....

My model is as follows,

public class NonComplianceData
    {
        public static IEnumerable<string> Months = new string[] { "January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", "November", "December" };
        public int InspectorId { get; set; }
        public string InspectorName { get; set; }
        public IEnumerable<MonthData> FullYearData { get; set; }
    }

    public class MonthData
    {
        public string Month { get; set; }      
        public int TotalAuditsCompleted { get; set; }
        public int TotalNoDefects { get; set; }
        public decimal NonComplianceRate
        {
            get
            {
                if (TotalAuditsCompleted == 0)
                {
                    return 0;
                }
                else
                {
                    return (TotalNoDefects / (decimal)TotalAuditsCompleted) * 100;
                }

            }
        }
    }

Then the code that fills the data is

var inspectorData = context.COESDetails
    .Where(x => x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditZoneId == criteria.AuditZoneId 
        && x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditMonth.Contains(criteria.AuditYear))
    .Select(x => x.Inspector)
    .Where(y => y.Id != 0)
    .Distinct()
    .OrderBy(x => x.Firstname)
                    .Select(ud =>
                    new NonComplianceData
                    {
                        InspectorId = ud.Id,
                        InspectorName = ud.Firstname + " " + ud.Surname,
                        FullYearData = NonComplianceData.Months.Select(month => new MonthData
                        {
                            Month = month,
                            TotalAuditsCompleted = context.COESDetails.Count(x => x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditZoneId == criteria.AuditZoneId && x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditMonth == (month + " " + criteria.AuditYear) && x.InspectorId == ud.Id && x.AuditType != (int)AuditType.NotSelected),
                            TotalNoDefects = context.COESDetails.Count(x => x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditZoneId == criteria.AuditZoneId && x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditMonth == (month + " " + criteria.AuditYear) && x.InspectorId == ud.Id && x.AuditType != (int)AuditType.NotSelected && x.COESDetailsCOESDefects.Any())
                        })

                    });

so how can I order by month?

I initially thought maybe I have a model like the following

 public class MonthDefinitions
    {
        public string Month { get; set; }
        public int Order { get; set; }


    }

but then I ran into other issues...

any help would be appreciated

Thanks

Answer 1

One of the guys at my work explained this to me.. he said leave it as

IEnumerable<string> Months = new string[] 
{ "January", "February", "March", "April", "May", 
  "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", 
  "November", "December" };

When an array is defined, then it is used as shown. By default no sort is applied, it will be used as it is defined.

However in my code when I was prefilling the data, because I was using Entity frame work, when it was being passed to sql it was doing a sort. So he suggested that I put a toList at the end of my sql call

var inspectorData = context.COESDetails
    .Where(x => x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditZoneId == criteria.AuditZoneId 
        && x.UploadCOESDetails.AuditMonth.Contains(criteria.AuditYear)).ToList()....rest of the code

This kept the months in the order I defined them

Thanks for your help guys

Answer 2

Your problem is that you are using the name to order by, and not the value in which they are.

So what you'll get is :

> April August December February January July June March May November October September

You could either use the array position, or as you suggested, attach a numeric value to each month, and sort by that.

---

Have a look at this answer, but basically, using something like:
DateTime.ParseExact(monthName, "MMMM", CultureInfo.CurrentCulture ).Month

---

Given:

IEnumerable<string> Months = new string[] 
{ "January", "February", "March", "April", "May", 
  "June", "July", "August", "September", "October", 
  "November", "December" };

You want:

var sorted_months = 
    Months.OrderBy(m => DateTime.ParseExact(m, "MMMM", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture ))

That will give you the months in their correct order