Sorting a list with paths by deepest directory

Question

Hello.

I need to sort a list that contains paths (relative or absolute) so that the deepest path appears first, for example:

\New Folder\Item1\tools\1
\New Folder\Item1\tools
\New Folder\Item1
\New Folder
etc...

Is there an API in Path class I can use to do it?

Thanks! J.

Answer 1

This is a bit out-of-the-box, but you could always do this:

var sortedList = list.OrderByDescending(
    p => p.Count(c => c == Path.DirectorySeparatorChar
        || c == Path.AltDirectorySeparatorChar));

That is, simply order by how often the path separator character appears.

Answer 2

I assume those paths are strings, so why not just sort them in descending order?

var paths = new List<string>
{
  "\\New Folder",
  "\\New Folder\\tools",
  "\\Windows",
  "\\Windows\\System32",
  "\\New Folder\\tools\\1",
};

var result = paths.OrderByDescending(s => s);

Or if they are in a string[] you can use:

Array.Sort(paths);
Array.Reverse(paths);

Result is:

\Windows\System32
\Windows
\New Folder\tools\1
\New Folder\tools
\New Folder