c# sort listbox

I need some sort of function to sort the listbox based on the date. As an example the listbox has:

[Wednesday, November 24, 2010 5:30PM] - Example Text
[Friday, December 24, 2010 1:30 PM] - Example Text
[Thursday, November 25, 2010 12:00PM] - Example Text

I have no idea how I would do this any ideas?

 

Override the sort method to return DateTime.Parse(x).CompareTo(DateTime.Parse(y))

Actually, this sort method actually does the sort...
I'll think about this some more...

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.listbox.sort.aspx gives an example of overriding the method. The algorithm it uses is inefficent, but if you have few items to sort, it hopefully won't be noticeable. You will need to change it from sorting by Items(counter[+offset]).ToString.Length to sorting by DateTime.Parse(Items(counter[+offset]).ToString)

It seems like there should be a way you can just sort Items, using a function like the one I gave first... but if this works, it works.

 

IMO, the easiest way might be to do something like:

Code:

string dateFormat = "dddd, MMMM dd, yyyy H:MMtt";
List<DateTime> Dates;
List<string> dateStrings;

foreach(string s in ListBox1.Items)
    Dates.add(DateTime.Parse(s, dateFormat));

Dates.Sort();

dateStrings = new List<string>();

foreach(DateTime d in Dates)
    dateStrings.Add(d.ToString(dateFormat));

ListBox1.Items.AddRange(dateStrings);

I think you could do this with fewer lines using lambda expressions, but I don't have Visual Studio on this computer so I can't test it out. Also, depending on what structure you are populating the list box from, you could skip the first half of the code and just sort it before you populate it.

 

Yes, Wyatt_Earp's way is best if you can just add them all at once, that is, if you don't need to change the ListBox choices afterward. If you do need to change them, you can still use the same method. Just change the first List and resort it, then repopulate the second List and ListBox.

It does take more memory to keep 2 lists, but it doesn't matter so much, since the first is just DateTimes, rather than strings.