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String AlphabetizeImplement a string alphabetize method to sort the letters in strings.
C#
This page was last reviewed on Jun 23, 2023.
Alphabetize string. In C# an individual string can be alphabetized. This rearranges the letters so they are sorted A to Z. These strings with sorted letters can be used as lookup keys.
We can alphabetize characters in a string, but we do not always need to. Consider the case of the string "abc": it does not need to be alphabetized again.
Example method. Here we see a method that alphabetizes strings in the C# programming language. The method receives a string and returns a sorted copy of that string.
Sort
Note Please recall that strings are immutable. This means we cannot sort the letters in-place.
Info Alphabetize() converts the string to a char array using ToCharArray. It uses the static Array.Sort method.
And The final line in the method creates a new string from the char array it modified, and returns it.
char Array
Array.Sort
Tip With char arrays, we can change a character without copying any data. This is not possible to do with a string.
String ToCharArray
using System; class Program { static void Main() { Console.WriteLine(Alphabetize("bird")); Console.WriteLine(Alphabetize("spot")); Console.WriteLine(Alphabetize("cat")); } /// <summary> /// Alphabetize the characters in the string. /// </summary> public static string Alphabetize(string s) { // Convert to char array. char[] a = s.ToCharArray(); // Sort letters. Array.Sort(a); // Return modified string. return new string(a); } }
bdir opst act
Already alphabetical. Some strings are already in alphabetical order. We can avoid sorting these strings. Here we see a method that tests for alphabetical order—it can improve performance.
Note IsAlpha compares the numeric values of chars, so it won't work right on uppercase letters.
char
Note 2 IsAlpha contains a foreach statement that loops through each character in the string.
Loop, String Chars
And If it finds a character that is lower in its ordinal value than the previous character, it returns false.
Also It returns early when it finds an incorrect (non-alphabetized) character. In this situation, no further processing is needed.
using System; class Program { static void Main() { Console.WriteLine(IsAlpha("abc")); Console.WriteLine(IsAlpha("bird")); } /// <summary> /// Alphabetize string, checking to see if it is already alphabetized. /// </summary> public static string AlphabetizeCheck(string s) { if (IsAlpha(s)) { return s; } else { // TODO: Sort and return the new string. return ""; } } /// <summary> /// See if letters in string are in numeric ascending order. /// </summary> public static bool IsAlpha(string s) { char prev = char.MinValue; foreach (char c in s) { if (c < prev) { return false; } prev = c; } return true; } }
True False
A summary. We saw approaches for alphabetizing strings. It is typically a bad idea to use nested for-loops—that is often a slower solution.
A final note. This code may not work on mixed-case strings. We can remedy this by calling ToLower in Alphabetize—this is not always be needed.
String ToLower, ToUpper
Dot Net Perls is a collection of tested code examples. Pages are continually updated to stay current, with code correctness a top priority.
Sam Allen is passionate about computer languages. In the past, his work has been recommended by Apple and Microsoft and he has studied computers at a selective university in the United States.
This page was last updated on Jun 23, 2023 (edit).
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