SortedList that just takes IComparable

Question

I have an interface IScriptItem that implements IComparable<IQueueItem>. In my eyes it would seem enough to have IComparable items in order to have a sorted anything. But all I can find is Dictionaries, Hashtables and SortedLists that are actually SortedTrees.

What I'm looking for is a sorted generic list that takes IComparables. Am I looking in the wrong places?

Answer 1

There's nothing built-in. You have some options:

• Use SortedList with a dummy TValue.
• Use a list or array and call List.Sort() or Array.Sort() when necessary.
• Write your own.
• Use a third party library

For this particular case check out Wintellect PowerCollections OrderedBag class, which uses a red-black tree internally. Other good free data structure libraries include NGenerics and C5.

Answer 2

If I understand correctly, you want an SortedCollection< TValue> instead of the various SortedCollection< TKey, TValue> that are there.

In .NET 4 there is a new SortedSet<T> class that keeps its items in order, but doesn't allow duplicates. Otherwise you'll have to look at 3rd party options, like the one Matt Howells mentions.