TSQL OrderBy vs LINQ OrderBy Madness for UniqueIdentifier

Question

After hours of trying to figure out why a piece of code is out of sync i came to the realization that TSQL OrderBy differs greatly from Linq OrderBy for strings. So naturally I had to find a way to make sure a statement from tsql returns the same order as linq so I used a uniqueidentifier(guid) as my primary, however that seems to be wacked.

Here is the order using Linq (using the Guid(UniqueID) type for the property)

var listings = validListings.Select(x => x.TempListing)
                            .OrderBy(x => x.UniqueID)
                            .ToList();

It seems TSQL uses the binary value of the uniqueidentifier to compare while LINQ uses the string value even though the row is GUID

LINQ RESULTS (Printed) (first few)

00460400-a41d-465d-83c5-225f697e7bb5
015bef8d-5fa3-4c03-8d05-bfecf74b36b9
0202b433-4748-4660-97a1-94d119209aa6
03f34eb0-45cd-4586-b7d2-6e337b441c43
05e41d20-be24-4f4f-b098-574744dd84f0
0767e5d5-afba-49ab-a047-c9f509c80d3a
08f87ba1-8aa8-48a6-8f98-c3b4c6511b76
0b4157c4-7bdc-4e98-a00c-9259af754844
0bd194d0-fb66-4a69-9718-2128594ff9b0
0cda256a-7632-47de-b867-a2bc46382881
0d36f81a-ca37-446e-a325-87b46ef5b8d3
0d89fd26-4204-4d0a-b187-73a36536a848
0e345ca9-3d5d-43ed-aa75-fbd356f94535
0e767557-87ea-4c31-9f54-75d354a87d0f
0f62fc97-85b0-4611-b3e5-0c5ae4f12a18
1020d776-9810-4122-a9ef-3c527f21970c

TSQL FIRST FEW

9C5231CE-01DE-4A20-A4C9-001AD0D28512
3D52B47C-B29C-44A8-99F9-00AA660610A8
FDA7B67D-AEDB-4644-96E4-0147A0EEC29D
C8C7B677-76EB-41D3-B11C-020B9047EB00
487FF542-599B-42D4-BCE3-02C5D569E509
BDAA48DB-60AF-4A36-AFDB-02FA706EE87F
2CD9D59C-C2B5-433C-9FD1-0444F0384BB3
D44695A3-6FEF-4842-BFCB-048C110FA178
28FF051C-38A7-424F-B657-0698452DFE36
D9320EC6-64CD-4C26-8C5C-088C04E22AD7
D9F7FDC1-16D6-4C3A-B117-0908A234DF95
7DB09D09-F10B-4F33-9390-09211F9B2958
D970EE98-B575-4E73-BBAC-0981D6DC1682
9B05CDD9-2D85-486B-BC6B-0BA7E44F6021
539D22ED-FF2A-4376-A650-0BFE184C0E26
0F62FC97-85B0-4611-B3E5-0C5AE4F12A18
5D8EF134-0DC2-4B32-9F02-0C65940C1BCF

How can I make them both return the same result?

Answer 1

As you have discovered, C# (System.Guid) and SQL Server use different algorithms to sort GUIDs.

If you want SQL Server to sort GUIDs the way System.Guid does, then convert it to VARCHAR.

If you want to sort Guids in C# the way SQL does, convert the Guid values to System.Data.SqlGuid:

var listings = validListings.Select(x =>x.TempListing)
                            .OrderBy(x=> new SqlGuid(x.UniqueID)).ToList();

That said, GUID is not an appropriate data type for a sortable column - I would switch to an IDENTITY column if possible.