How to sort a SortedDictionary collection by key alphabetically

Question

I have a collection of `SortedDictionary`: ``` SortedDictionary _variableValues = new SortedDictionary(); ``` The key value pairs look like: ``` ThkPost_Point15 5 ThkPost_Point1 15 ThkPost_Point11 8 ThkPost_Point2 7 ThkPost_Point20 1 ThkPost_Point22 1 ``` Now i want to sort them alphabetically. I tried to do this by using ``` _variableValues.OrderBy(key => key.Key); ``` But my problem is that the result of that is: ``` ThkPost_Point1 15 ThkPost_Point11 8 ThkPost_Point15 5 ThkPost_Point2 7 ThkPost_Point20 1 ThkPost_Point22 1 ``` But what im looking for is a solution to achieve a sort result like: ``` ThkPost_Point1 15 ThkPost_Point2 7 ThkPost_Point11 8 ThkPost_Point15 5 ThkPost_Point20 1 ThkPost_Point22 1 ``` Is there any way to sort data in this way using `SortedDictionary`? Edit: I tried to implement the hints of Babu and metacubed. So impelented it in the following way ``` static void Main(string[] args) { SortedDictionary _varVal = ne…

Accepted Answer

NOTE: Revising because the earlier answer did not correctly solve the problem.

What you are looking for is called "natural order" sorting. This is a lot more complicated to do correctly than earlier solutions. In short, you have to split the string key into its number and text parts, and then sort each part in order. If the part is number-like, sort it like a number. Otherwise, sort it as a string.

See this blog post Natural Sort Compare with Linq OrderBy for a possible implementation. The original source is here.

How to sort a SortedDictionary collection by key alphabetically

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