When to use IComparable Vs. IComparer

Question

I'm trying to figure out which of these interfaces I need to implement. They both essentially do the same thing. When would I use one over the other?

Answer 1

Use IComparable<T> when the class has an intrinsic comparison.

Use IComparer<T> when you want a comparison method other than the class' intrinsic comparison, if it has one.

Answer 2

Simple Explanation via a story

High school basketball. It's a school yard pick for the teams. I want to get the tallest/best/fastest folks on my team. What do I do?

IComparer Interface - Compare two people separate people

• This allows me to compare any two guys lined up.........that's basically it. Fred vs John..........i throw them into a concrete class which implements the interface. Compare(Fred, John) and it spits out who's better.

What about IComparable? - Compare yourself with someone else

Have you been on FB recently? You see other folks doing cool things: travelling the world, creating inventions, while I'm doing something not quite as cool - well what we are doing is making use of the IComparable interface.

• We are comparing the current instance (yourself) with another object (someone else) which is of the same type (person).

What about the Comparer Class?

The Comparer class is an abstract base class which implements the IComparer interface. You should derive from this class to have a concrete implementation. anyways, Microsoft recommends that you DO use the Comparer class rather than implement the IComparer interface:

We recommend that you derive from the Comparer class instead of implementing the IComparer interface, because the Comparer class provides an explicit interface implementation of the IComparer.Compare method and the Default property that gets the default comparer for the object.

Summary

• IComparer - line up two things and compare.
• IComparable - compare yourself with others on FB.

Hope the stories help you remember.

Answer 3

IComparable says an object can be compared with another. IComparer is an object that can compare any two items.

Answer 4

Well they are not quite the same thing as IComparer<T> is implemented on a type that is capable of comparing two different objects while IComparable<T> is implemented on types that are able to compare themselves with other instances of the same type.

I tend to use IComparable<T> for times when I need to know how another instance relates to this instance. IComparer<T> is useful for sorting collections as the IComparer<T> stands outside of the comparison.

Answer 5

IComparer is a interface which is used to sort the Array, this interface will force the class to implement the Compare(T x,T y) method, which will compare the two objects. The instance of the class which implemented this interface is used in the sorting of the Array.

IComparable is a interface is implemented in the type which needs to compare the two objects of the same type, This comparable interface will force the class to implement the following method CompareTo(T obj)

IEqualityComparer is a interface which is used to find the object whether it is Equal or not, Now we will see this in a sample where we have to find the Distinct of a Object in a collection. This interface will implement a method Equals(T obj1,T obj2)

Now we take a Example we have a Employee class , based on this class we have to create a Collection. Now we have the following requirements.

Sort the Array using Array class 2. Need an collection using Linq : Remove the Duplicate, Order by higher to lower, Remove one employee id

abstract public class Person
{
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
    public string Address { set; get; }
}

public enum SortType
{
    ByID,
    BySalary
}

public class EmployeeIdSorter : IComparer { public int Compare(Employee x, Employee y) { if (x.Id < y.Id) return 1; else if (x.Id > y.Id) return -1; else return 0; } }

    public class EmployeeSalarySorter : IComparer<Employee>
    {
        public int Compare(Employee x, Employee y)
        {
            if (x.Salary < y.Salary)
                return 1;
            else if (x.Salary > y.Salary)
                return -1;
            else
                return 0;
        }
    }

For more info refere below http://dotnetvisio.blogspot.in/2015/12/usage-of-icomparer-icomparable-and.html

Answer 6

It all depends on whether your type is mutable or not. You should only implement IComparable on non-mutable types. Note that if you implement IComparable, you must override Equals, along with the ==, !=, < and > operators (see Code Analysis warning CA1036).

Quoting Dave G from this blog post:

But the correct answer is to implement IComparer instead of IComparable if your objects are mutable, and pass an instance of the IComparer to sorting functions when necessary.

Since the IComparer is just a disposable object used for sorting at that point in time, your object can have any mutable semantics you desire. Furthermore, it doesn't require or even suggest using Equals, GetHashCode, or == - you're free to define it in any way you please.

Finally, you can define multiple IComparer's for your type for sorting on different fields or with different rules. This is much more flexible than being stuck with one definition.

In short: Use IComparable for value types and IComparer for reference types.