How do I do a Client side sort of a DataTable using LINQ

Question

How do I sort a DataTable on the client side using LINQ? (Server side sorting is not supported with my data store)

I was doing something like this which doesn't work

IEnumerable<DataRow> dr = GetDataTableData().AsEnumerable();

           if (sortDirection == "Ascending")
                        {
                            dr = dr.OrderBy(x => sortExpression);
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            dr = dr.OrderByDescending(x => sortExpression);
                        }

                GridView1.DataSource = dr;
                GridView1.DataBind();

But I dont see the gridview sorting at all, what am I missing here?

Answer 1

I am slightly confused here as the code you have posted is server side code!

If you want client side sorting on a table then you may have to look at these two topics

1. Ajax calls back to the server to retrieve the sorted data (in this case it is then server side)
2. Client side sorting using a JQuery plugin

Answer 2

My guess is that sortExpression is a string that you are passing in to the method; You should be sorting on something in x. eg:

dr = dr.OrderBy(x => x.FirstName);

As Rory pointed out in the comments, you can just use x[sortExpression] in your case; If you were using objects instead of the DataRow, you could make a key selector expression and pass it in to OrderBy() instead; something like:

Func<IDataRow, string> sortExpressionReal = x => x["FirstName"].ToString();

then your OrderBy would look like:

dr = dr.OrderBy(sortExpressionReal);

Answer 3

Do you have to use linq. You can do this quite easily with DataViews DataView vw = new DataView(dtbl,"filter","FirstName DESC",DataViewRowState.CurrentRows); GridView1.DataSource=vw; GridView1.DataBind();