CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#htmlektron
Si8
Si8

Reputation: 9225

How to sort on anchor links title inside a string builder

I have the following:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < contentList.Count;i++)
{
    sb.Append("<div class=\"justPad\">");
    sb.Append("<a class=\"defaultLinks\" ");
    sb.Append("href=" + contentList[i].Quicklink + " ");
    sb.Append("title=" + contentList[i].Title + ">" + contentList[i].Title + "</a>");
    sb.Append("</div>");
}
Label2.Text = sb.ToString();

The result is:

<span id="ctl00_BodyPlaceHolder_Label2">
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3198" title="Hammond, John">Hammond, John</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3205" title="Beezer, Michelle">Beezer, Michelle</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3208" title="Tops, John">Tops, John</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3209" title="Kew, Lauren">Kew, Lauren</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=352" title="Perez, Lance">Perez, Lance</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=353" title="Powell, French">Powell, French</a></div>
</span>

As you can see the order of display is not sorted.

How can I sort the StringBuilder based on contentList[i].Title so end result is:

<span id="ctl00_BodyPlaceHolder_Label2">
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3205" title="Beezer, Michelle">Beezer, Michelle</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3198" title="Hammond, John">Hammond, John</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3209" title="Kew, Lauren">Kew, Lauren</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=352" title="Perez, Lance">Perez, Lance</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=353" title="Powell, French">Powell, French</a></div>
    <div class="justPad"><a class="defaultLinks" href="/pro.aspx?id=3208" title="Tops, John">Tops, John</a></div>
</span>

Upvotes: 0

Views: 973

Answers (1)

Sergey Berezovskiy
Sergey Berezovskiy

Reputation: 236208

It's simple - sort content list before building list of links: 

foreach (var content in contentList.OrderBy(c => c.Title))
{
    sb.Append("<div class=\"justPad\">");
    sb.Append("<a class=\"defaultLinks\" ");
    sb.Append("href=\"" + content.Quicklink + "\" ");
    sb.Append("title=\"" + content.Title + "\">" + content.Title + "</a>");
    sb.Append("</div>");
}

Consider also using interpolated strings to make your code more readable:

sb.Append($"<a class='defaultLinks' href='{content.Quicklink}' title='{content.Title}'>");

Note: consider to use HtmlTextWriter if you are creating some html. You can write to string (as with StringBuilder) or directly to any other TextWriter to avoid creating big in-memory strings:

// using System.Web.UI

StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();
using (HtmlTextWriter writer = new HtmlTextWriter(stringWriter))
{
    writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Id, "ctl00_BodyPlaceHolder_Label2");
    writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Span);

    foreach (var content in contentList.OrderBy(c => c.Title))
    {
        writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Class, "justPad");
        writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Div);

        writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Class, "defaultLinks");
        writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Href, content.Quicklink);
        writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Title, content.Title);
        writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.A);

        writer.WriteEncodedText(content.Title);
        writer.RenderEndTag();
        writer.RenderEndTag();
    }

    writer.RenderEndTag();
}

Upvotes: 1

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