Sort Nested List and Dictionary

Question

How can i achieve Sorting of a List<Dictionary<string, string>>.

I would like to sort the list on the basis of first element in the Dictionary.

My data Looks like

{
{{PID,A123},{SKU,TA50},{QTY,50}},
{{PID,C123},{SKU,TA52},{QTY,50}},
{{PID,B123},{SKU,TA53},{QTY,50}},
{{PID,A222},{SKU,TA54},{QTY,50}}
}

I am trying to get the output to look like

{
{{PID,A123},{SKU,TA50},{QTY,50}},
{{PID,A222},{SKU,TA54},{QTY,50}},
{{PID,B123},{SKU,TA53},{QTY,50}},
{{PID,C123},{SKU,TA52},{QTY,50}}
}

Solutions tried list.Sort - Not working since the contents are dictionary. list.OrderBy - Method not available.

Technology Working on - Visual Studio Community 2017, .NET 4.6.1, Console Application

"list.OrderBy - Method not available." - it's an extension method. Do you have `using System.Linq;`? — ProgrammingLlama, Dec 06 '18 at 12:00
Since Dictionary elements has no order, there is not "first element in the Dictionary". — Sanan Fataliyev, Dec 06 '18 at 12:01
Using a dictionary if you need an ordered collection sounds like a code smell. It's order is not stable and you might get different results after adding or removing items. — Tim Schmelter, Dec 06 '18 at 12:06
@Rango what would you suggest for this kind of structured data — Angad Arora, Dec 06 '18 at 12:16

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 06 '18 at 12:02

3

How about Linq OrderBy() combined with key access of the Dictionary ["PID"]

items = items.OrderBy(x => x["PID"]).ToList();

so the Dictionaies are ordered, but themselves have no order

answered Dec 06 '18 at 12:02

fubo

Thank you for your answer, i just wanted to know if i want to say filter this List and get values only where "SKU" = "TA50", how can i achieve that? – Angad Arora Dec 07 '18 at 08:29
1

@AngadArora `Where(x => x["SKU"] == "TA50")` – fubo Dec 07 '18 at 09:07

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 06 '18 at 12:02

3

If you want to sort list by dictionary key then

var result = list.OrderBy(dict => dict["PID"]).ToList();

You need to refrenced using System.Linq; in your program to avail OrderBy in intellisense.

answered Dec 06 '18 at 12:02

er-sho

Thank you for your time, as per the community if two answers are correct and same solution, i had to select the answer which came first. But thank you so much for your support. – Angad Arora Dec 06 '18 at 12:19
1

@AngadArora, Glad to hear...No problem.. fubo's and my answer posted on difference of few seconds only...welcome :) – er-sho Dec 06 '18 at 12:27

2 Answers2