Ordering Controls inside FlowLayoutpanel

Question

I have a Windows.Forms.FlowLayoutPanel that is being filled at runtime with controls of the type MasterMeter (and controls inheriting from MasterMeter). This is your standard Usercontrol. Each of those controls has a property ErrorTime. This value keeps the duration of the current error or alert.

 Datetime? ErrorTime {get; set;}

I'm currently trying to order the controls using the bubblesort-method based on the duration of the error (descending). Right now I was wondering is there a faster/more performant/more reliable way to do this?

If not, is there another container i could be using? It needs to have the following caracteristics:

• Amount of items may vary
• Amount of items at runtime may change from 0 to 100 (never had more than 100 errors before...)
• Must be able to contain usercontrols

Current Code (that won't sort)

I'm using a 1D-Array to keep it simple (in reality its a jagged Array). Note: The possibilty of NULL values

MasterMeter[] meterList = {new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = null },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = DateTime.Now },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-10) },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = DateTime.Now.AddDays(37) },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = DateTime.Now.AddDays(53) },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = DateTime.Now.AddDays(3) },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = null },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-17) },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-10) },
                           new MasterMeter() { ErrorTime = null }
                          };

I'm Bubblesorting as follows:

        for (int outer = 0; outer < meterList.Count(); outer++)
        {
            for (int inner = 0; inner < (meterList.Count() - 1); inner++)
            {
                if (meterList[inner].ErrorTime > meterList[inner + 1].ErrorTime)
                {
                    var temp = meterList[inner + 1];
                    meterList[inner + 1] = meterList[inner];
                    meterList[inner] = temp;
                }
            }
        }

My ouput result (Using Console.Writeline):

        foreach (MasterMeter meterlist in meterList)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(meterlist.ErrorTime);
        }
        Console.ReadLine();

But my array still isn't sorted. What is going wrong here?

Answer 1

You have to decide what to do with those null values in your list since it does interfere with your bubble sort:

if (!meterList[inner].ErrorTime.HasValue || 
    meterList[inner].ErrorTime > meterList[inner + 1].ErrorTime) {

As far as re-ordering the controls in the FlowLayoutPanel, that code was missing from your post, but in general, you would use the FlowLayoutPanel.Controls.SetChildIndex method to re-order your controls.