Sorting string with number in Umbraco Razor

Question

In a Umbraco site I have an address in a string, so that string will contain a number, like: Street Road 2, Street Road 14, Street Road 22b etc.

I am sorting the list by address (among other values)

var apartments = Umbraco.Content(Guid.Parse("f3c9c894-16e5-491e-b39f-77bf2cb13c6f"))
.ChildrenOfType("ApartmentItem")
.Where(x => x.IsVisible()).OrderBy(x => x.Value("apartmentItemStatus")
.ToString().Replace(" ", "")).ThenBy(x => x.Name.ToString().Replace(" ", ""));

The expected result would be

Street Road 2
Street Road 14
Street Road 22b

But the actual result is

Street Road 14
Street Road 2
Street Road 22b

I can't figure out how to sort it correctly. I would like to avoid splitting the string, taking the number, converting to int, etc.

Does this answer your question? [How do I sort strings alphabetically while accounting for value when a string is numeric?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6396378/how-do-i-sort-strings-alphabetically-while-accounting-for-value-when-a-string-is) — Roe, Mar 21 '23 at 14:44
"I would like to avoid splitting the string, taking the number, converting to int" - then you won't be sorting by numeric value. You will have to do one or more of these things. — NetMage, Mar 21 '23 at 19:25

NetMage · Answer 1 · 2023-03-21T21:05:21.680

Using some extension methods on String, you can create an IComparer<IEnumerable<string>> for sorting IEnumerable<string> such that non-numeric strings sort normally, and numeric strings sort by length, then by string value. Then you can split the addresses into words, and sort using the new comparer.

public static class StringExt {
    static Regex wordRE = new(@"\w+", RegexOptions.Compiled | RegexOptions.NonBacktracking);
    public static IEnumerable<string> Words(this string s) => s.Matches(wordRE);
    public static IEnumerable<string> Matches(this string s, Regex re) => re.Matches(s).Cast<Match>().Select(m => m.Value);

    public static bool IsAllDigits(this string s) => s.All(ch => Char.IsDigit(ch)); // faster than Regex
}

public class WordsAndNumbersComparer : IComparer<IEnumerable<string>> {
    StringComparer cmp;

    protected WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer c) => cmp = c;

    public WordsAndNumbersComparer Create(CultureInfo ci, bool ignoreCase)
        => new WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer.Create(ci, ignoreCase));

    static WordsAndNumbersComparer currentCultureComparer;
    public static WordsAndNumbersComparer CurrentCulture
        => currentCultureComparer ??= new WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer.CurrentCulture);

    static WordsAndNumbersComparer currentCultureIgnoreCaseComparer;
    public static WordsAndNumbersComparer CurrentCultureIgnoreCase
        => currentCultureIgnoreCaseComparer ??= new WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);

    static WordsAndNumbersComparer invariantCultureComparer;
    public static WordsAndNumbersComparer InvariantCulture
        => invariantCultureComparer ??= new WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer.InvariantCulture);

    static WordsAndNumbersComparer invariantCultureIgnoreCaseComparer;
    public static WordsAndNumbersComparer InvariantCultureIgnoreCase
        => invariantCultureIgnoreCaseComparer ??= new WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase);

    static WordsAndNumbersComparer ordinalComparer;
    public static WordsAndNumbersComparer Ordinal
        => ordinalComparer ??= new WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer.Ordinal);

    static WordsAndNumbersComparer ordinalIgnoreCaseComparer;
    public static WordsAndNumbersComparer OrdinalIgnoreCase
        => ordinalIgnoreCaseComparer ??= new WordsAndNumbersComparer(StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase);

    public int Compare(IEnumerable<string> firstWords, IEnumerable<string> secondWords) {
        return firstWords.Zip(secondWords)
                     .Select(fst => {
                         if (fst.First.IsAllDigits() && fst.Second.IsAllDigits()) {
                             var lenCmp = fst.First.Length.CompareTo(fst.Second.Length);
                             if (lenCmp != 0)
                                 return lenCmp;
                         }
                         return cmp.Compare(fst.First, fst.Second);
                     })
                     .FirstOrDefault(c => c != 0, 0);
    }
}

With these defined, you can use them like so:

var ans = src.OrderBy(s => s.Words(), WordsAndNumbersComparer.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);

which sorts your example street addresses as expected.

NOTE: Using the .Net 7 Regex enhancements around ReadOnlySpan<char>, you could probably write a version of WordsAndNumbersComparer that takes a string and uses the enhancements internally to reduce object (string) creation for the comparison. But because OrderBy caches keys, pulling the invariant key computation out may be more efficient than constantly slicing the address when sorting.

Sorting string with number in Umbraco Razor

1 Answers1