Sorting array of formatted time strings

Question

I am trying to sort my arraylist.

The array list consists of data in time format.

Array:

9:15 AM, 10:20 AM

How should I sort it?

The result i get from below code is :

10:20 AM
9:15 AM

Below is my code:

String timeText = readFileTime.ReadLine();
    timeSplit = timeText.Split(new char[] { '^' });
    Array.Sort(timeSplit);

foreach (var sortedArray in timeSplit)
    {
        sortedTimeListBox.Items.Add(sortedArray);
    }

Answer 1

Yes, since you simply split a string, you're merely sorting an array of strings (meaning 1 comes before 9 and it doesn't care about the decimal point). To get the sorting you desire, you need to first convert it into a DateTime like this:

timeSplit = timeText
    .Split(new char[] { '^' });
    .Select(x => new { Time = DateTime.Parse(x), String = x })
    .OrderBy(x => x.Time)
    .Select(x => x.String)
    .ToArray();

Here, what we've done is:

1. Split the string as you had done before
2. Create a new anonymous type that contains the original string and also that string converted into a DateTime.
3. Ordered it by the DateTime property
4. Select'ed back to the original string
5. Converted it into an array

timeSplit now contains the strings sorted as you wanted.