How to sort a dictionary by key

Question

I have dictionary Dictionary<string, Point>

the Key is c1,c3,c2,t1,,t4,t2 I want to sort them to be c1,c2,c3,t1,t2,t3

I'm trying to sort it using

Input.OrderBy(key => key.Key ); 

but it doesn't work

any idea how to solve that

Answer 1

Input.OrderBy does not sort the dictionary, it creates a query that returns the items in a specific order.

Perhaps OrderedDictionary gives you what you want.

Or use the Generic SortedDictionary

Answer 2

Load the unsorted object into a SortedDictionary object like so:

SortedDictionary<string, string> sortedCustomerData = new SortedDictionary<string,string>(unsortedCustomerData); 

Where unsortedCustomerData is the same generic type (Dictionary string, string or in your case string, point). It will automatically sort the new object by key

According to msdn: SortedDictionary(IDictionary): Initializes a new instance of the SortedDictionary class that contains elements copied from the specified IDictionary and uses the default IComparer implementation for the key type.