C# Sort Array by multiple different conditions

March 16, 2022

I got an array which contains items of the object ‘Person’

I need to have the special people on top (those sorted by Id) and the nonspecial people below (those sorted alphabetically). It should look like this:

Is there a way of sorting it like this without having to split the list, sort it individually and then merging it back together?

>Solution :

First you can OrderBy by Special (note that false < true) and then you can use condition within ThenBy like this:

var result = persons
  .OrderBy(person => person.Special != "Yes")
  .ThenBy(person => person.Special == "Yes" ? person.Id : 0)
  .ThenBy(person => person.Special == "Yes" ? "" : person.Name);