How to sort an array containing class objects by a property value of a class instance?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to sort an array of object by a specific field in C#?

Given the following code:

MyClass myClass;
MyClassArray[] myClassArray = new MyClassArray[10];

for(int i; i < 10; i++;)
{
    myClassArray[i] = new myClass();
    myClassArray[i].Name = GenerateRandomName();
}

The end result could for example look like this:

myClassArray[0].Name //'John';
myClassArray[1].Name //'Jess';
myClassArray[2].Name //'James';

How would you sort the MyClassArray[] array according to the myClass.Name property alphabetically so the array will look like this in the end:

myClassArray[0].Name //'James';
myClassArray[1].Name //'Jess';
myClassArray[2].Name //'John';

*Edit: I'm using VS 2005/.NET 2.0.

Answer 1

Implement ICompare interface and use Array.Sort() method.

Answer 2

Have MyClass implement IComparable interface and then use Array.Sort

Something like this will work for CompareTo (assuming the Name property has type string)

public int CompareTo(MyClass other)
{
    return this.Name.CompareTo(other.Name);
}

Or simply using Linq

MyClass[] sorted = myClassArray.OrderBy(c => c.Name).ToArray();

Answer 3

Why arrays? Cant you use a List, which has builtin sorting capabilities? (And can also be dynamically sized, items added/removed, etc.)

Answer 4

You can use the Array.Sort overload that takes a Comparison<T> parameter:

Array.Sort(myClassArray,
    delegate(MyClass x, MyClass y) { return x.Name.CompareTo(y.Name); });