LINQ OrderBy not ordering .. changing nothing .. why?

user1415838 picture user1415838 · May 24, 2012 · Viewed 16.8k times · Source

Any idea why the LINQ OrderBy is not working in following code, (have no errors but method does not sort ...)

First my own type

public class IQLinksView
    {
        public int id { get; set; }
        public int catid { get; set; }
        public int? viewed {get;set;}
        public string name {get;set;}
        public string desc {get;set;}
        public string url {get;set;}
        public string pic {get;set;}
        public string cat {get;set;}
    }

then query :

IQueryable<IQLinksView> newView = 
              from links in this.emContext.tbl_otherlinks
              select new IQLinksView { id = links.pklinkid, catid =
              links.tbl_catgeory.pkcategoryid, viewed = links.linkviewed, name = links.linkname, 
              desc = links.linkdesc, pic = links.linkpicture,   url = links.linkurl, cat =
              links.tbl_catgeory.categoryname };

Untill here all fine :-), but then

newView.OrderBy(x => x.viewed);

just changes nothing,... Page is loading results showing ... but no ordering ... sniff

i have Try with (creating a comparer object ... ):

newView.OrderBy(x => (Int32)x.viewed, new CompareIntegers());

same result, no ordering ...

I do have workarounds but just wondering what is missing ....

Any suggestions will be appreciated thanks a lot :-)

Answer

user166390 picture user166390 · May 24, 2012

Don't throw away the return value. The OrderBy extension method is does not mutate the input. Try:

newView = newView.OrderBy(x => x.viewed);

There is no reason why that won't work, assuming the viewed value is correct. Also, make sure that OrderBy is after any operations (e.g. Distinct) which will ruin ordering.

Happy coding!