IList(Of T).Sort help

Question

Dim classCodeDetails As List(Of ClassCodeDetail) =     
    db.ClassCodeHeaders.Single(Function(cch)
        cch.CLCH_ID = classCodeHeaderId
    ).ClassCodeDetails.ToList()

classCodeDetails.Sort(Function(c1, c2)  
    c1.Make.MAKE_English.CompareTo(c2.Make.MAKE_English)
)

My question is how can I sort on multiple attributes? I want to sort first by Make.MAKE_English, then By Model.MODL_English.

How do I implement that?

Thanks,
~ck

Answer 1

If you don't need to sort in-place, you could use the OrderBy function:

Dim sortedList = list.OrderBy(Function(x) x.Prop1).ThenBy(Function(x) x.Prop2)

Your example would be:

Dim classCodeDetails As List(Of ClassCodeDetail) = _
   db.ClassCodeHeaders.Single(Function(cch) cch.CLCH_ID = classCodeHeaderId).ClassCodeDetails _
  .OrderBy(Function(c1) c1.Make.MAKE_English) _
  .ThenBy(Function(c1) c1.Make.MODL_English) _
  .ToList()

In fact, this is the correct way to do this (seems you are using LINQ to SQL) since it'll use ORDER BY in the generated SQL statement to sort data instead of manually sorting it on the client.